Orric and Ella (Bown) Cole donated part of their farmland for construction of a school on March 30, 1888, and the original Cole School was constructed in that year. Ella Cole taught at the school during its first five years. By 1891 Cole School was part of School District 29, and it may have been the only school in the district. By 1903 Cole School was part of School District 5, and a new school building had been designed by architects
Campbell & Wayland. Contractor I. J. Allen constructed the 2-story, 8-room brick schoolhouse. It opened in November, 1903, with Professor John H. Kruger as principal. The building featured a hipped roof and secondary hipped roofs at each corner, with a central bell tower above and behind a small, hipped gable with dormer centered above the
Romanesque entry. In 1937
Tourtellotte & Hummel designed a 2-story
Art Deco gymnasium and cafeteria adjacent to the school, and in 1951 a 1-story addition to the school was constructed. Cole School was annexed into the Independent School District of Boise City in 1948. A bell was installed in the tower at Cole School. Cole School closed on June 5, 2008, and the school district announced plans for demolition. A committee of preservationists and local activists tried to save the school, but it was demolished in November, 2009. ==References==