The Artland-Gymnasium and its predecessors have been the only secondary school in the
Osnabrück region for centuries. So far it has not been possible to conclusively clarify when the first higher education institution was built in Quakenbrück. What is certain is that in 1354 a school director in Quakenbrück () is mentioned in a document. The chroniclers agree that this was an institution of the St. Sylvester Church, which originally had to care about new clergy. The city of Quakenbrück must have participated since 1507 at the latest, which is evident from a series of invoices. Until 1893, the school was housed in an annex to the St. Sylvester Church. In 1647, the dean redesigned the school system. The old Latin school was merged with the Protestant elementary school, with a Catholic school remaining. When the monopoly of Latin teaching fell in the course of the 19th century, the Quakenbrücker Magistrate applied for the conversion to a
Progymnasium, which started operations in 1832 with three teachers, three classes and 40 students, the number of which, however, steadily decreased until the school became a
Realgymnasium and achieved increasing numbers of students. In 1874 the school moved to a new building on
Große Mühlenstraße, which was subsequently expanded and rebuilt several times. In 1964, a new building was necessary again after the number of students had risen to 550. The city of Quakenbrück provided a site in the southeast of the city center of Quakenbrück, only a few hundred meters from the market square. The district of Osnabrück constructed the building for a construction cost of almost 7 million
DM, a school complex with a sports hall and an auditorium with a stage and orchestra pit, which is also used by the city's cultural ring for theater events, was created. The inauguration of the school took place on 20 January 1967, the speech was given by former student and then-state minister of the economy, . ==Location==