The very moment a school stops being a school, with students running through its halls and janitors mopping the floors and oiling the furnace, it become a bologna sandwich rotting in the sun.
So many small rituals go into keeping our human artifices intact. We only notice them when they’re gone and reality comes calling. Schools are indelibly tied to memory, so they live forever even as the pigeons defile the woodwork. We can’t bear to tear them down but won’t pay to fix them, certainly not without the core purpose they were built to accomplish.
I wrote about the impact of a town losing its school last October. That’s when Randall, Minn., celebrated its now former elementary school. In that piece I talk about how most of the original buildings where I attended school are now repurposed or gone. Most folks who live in rural places experience this same phenomenon. As the population ages and changes in once vibrant little towns, the traditions fall away.
Today’s column (gift link) is about what happens next, or at least what could happen next.
We have a paradox on our hands. Half the economic problems in rural Minnesota are related to a lack of capacity for people to come here. This seems counterintuitive when the problem seems to be people leaving.
By capacity I mean jobs, of course, but also housing and other factors that would attract either investment, people or both. Part of why there are fewer jobs is because there are fewer people to do certain kinds of work. It’s hard to invest millions of dollars in a new XYZ factory in a faraway town when you’re not sure if you’ll have a consistent supply of skilled labor, or if your experts will want to move there. (Side note: It’s harder to spend those millions if locals aren’t welcoming to new people and open to change).
Rural Minnesota is full of housing gaps. Former schools and other public buildings might actually be a way to fill them.
Hence, the new Sandstone School housing project and others like it, including a refurbished jail. Read more in “Would you live in a building that was once a jail?” in the Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
