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A group of investors from Colfax, WA, promoted the growth of a new town, platted in 1880, and named it for NP Director Cheney. Gradually completing a northern transcontinental rail route from Minneapolis/Saint Paul, MN to Tacoma, WA, the NP had built rail lines into the new town of Cheney, WA, by 06/1881, spurring the settlement's growth. Construction began on the Benjamin P. Cheney Academy in the fall of 1881 and was finished and in use by 04/03/1882. The Cheney School District shared financing of the school from about 1882-1887 with Cheney, a Boston resident. According to one source, "The Benjamin P. Cheney Academy was built in the fall of 1881, and was completed soon after the opening of the year 1882. The builder was a Portland contractor, and the material was brought from Portland over the Northern Pacific railroad, which had been finished as far as Cheney about June, 1881. The building was a wooden structure, 36 X 66, with the longer side facing the town. On the inside there was a hall running across the building and dividing both the first and second floors into two schoolrooms each. The first teachers, D. H. Felch and Miss Augusta Bunker, sent out from Boston by Benjamin P. Cheney, opened school in the building April 3, 1882." (See "History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington,"Accessed 08/04/2014.) The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company and Northern Pacific allowed building materials to be transported from Portland on their lines free of charge. The Cheney Academy did not thrive during the 1880s, and efforts to re-purpose the floundering school as a public teacher's college began by the late 1880s. According to Louis Walter, who served six years as one of the Cheney school district's first board members, recalled, "'There was a merger of the public school and the academy from about 1883 to 1887. The academy was used as the school building. The district taxed itself about ten mills, and Mr. Cheney furnished the balance, which probably amounted to one-third of the cost. During the period of the merger, the affairs of the school were carried on by the two boards jointly. The merger became unsatisfactory because many people thought the Congregationalists had undue influence through the academy. When the merger ceased Cheney stopped his assistance, but he still continued to allow the school district to use the building and the grounds." (See "History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington,"Accessed 08/04/2014.) For about two years--1887 to 1889--the Cheney Academy floundered without backing, until support came from the State of WA. The newly-formed State of Washington, admitted to the Union in 1889, immediately began to develop its educational infrastructure, including the foundation of several normal schools (teacher education institutions) in the 1890s. This existing two-story, wood-frame facility, occupying 8 acres, served as the teacher's college, beginning on 03/18/1890. The State of Washington invested $18,300 to open it officially in the Fall of 1890, accommodating 29 women and 21 men. This first class entered on 10/13/1890.

Benjamin Pierce Cheney (1815–1895), born in Hillsborough, NH, (the same birthplace as the 14th US President Franklin Pierce [1804-1869]), became wealthy building the fortunes of the United States and Canada Express Company, a stagecoach concern, founded in 1854. In the same year, he also joined the Board of Directors of Wells Fargo and Company, an upstate NY-based business founded to provide express and banking services in the rapidly expanding State of CA. Cheney sold the United States and Canada Express Company to the larger American Express Company in 1879, becoming the largest individual stockholder in the latter. (Colleagues of Cheney's, Henry Wells [1805–1878] and William Fargo [1818-1881], founders of Wells Fargo and Company in 1852, also began stagecoach business, American Express, in 1850. American Express began specializing in transporting "stock certificates, notes, currency and other financial instruments" but got into banking itself when it saw the profits to be made in this line of work. [See "American Express Our Story,"Accessed 08/04/2014.]) Cheney also had banking and railroad interests, at times helping the railroads to acquire lending capital to expand. He sat on the Boards of Directors of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (1873-1894) and the Northern Pacific (NP) Railroad (c. 1880). Town fathers of Cheney wanted to curry favor with the company to look favorably on their new settlement, and selected one of the most influential Directors on the NP Board to honor. Properly flattered, Cheney, donated $10,000 to erect a new school and the railroad kicked in an additional 8 acres of land on which to build it.

A 24 x 60-foot rear addition was being constructed in 1891, to house a new library, meeting room, laboratory and dormitory space. A reminiscence of the building stated: "The building stood as described until 1891, when an addition, 24 X 60, was built at the middle of the rear end of the building, making the ground plan of the structure in the form of the 'T.' The addition was also of two stories, and was intended to be divided into four classrooms. It was also planned to have a gymnasium in the basement of the addition. But, while the addition was still under construction, a fire started, August 27, 1891, a short while before the opening of school, which destroyed both the unfinished addition and the main part of the school building. The fire occurred about one o'clock in the morning. Officially, it was declared that the fire started on the northeast side, ina heated mortar bed, which was too close to the wooden basement wall. The basement wall for both the main building and the addition was of wood." (See "History of the State Normal School at Cheney, Washington,"Accessed 08/04/2014.)

Demolished. This school building lasted about 10 years before burning on 08/27/1891.

PCAD id: 16084