Photo by Deb Gau Lyon County Historical Society executive director Jennifer Andries and West Side Elementary Principal Peter Thor hold up the plaque commemorating the school’s dedication in 1955.The Historical Society plans to preserve several artifacts before the building is demolished.

MARSHALL — The West Side Elementary building in Marshall may be headed for eventual demolition, but some reminders of the building are going to be preserved into the future, said Lyon County Historical Society Executive Director Jennifer Andries.

On Wednesday morning, Andries met with West Side Principal Peter Thor to accept a donation of artifacts form the school.

Among the items that will be going into the Historical Society’s collection is West Side’s dedication plaque from 1955, bearing the names of Marshall School Board members and the building’s architects and builders.

“It was an important piece that really identified the building,” Andries said.

Other artifacts going to the Historical Society include a large globe-shaped glass light fixture that hung in one of West Side’s stairwells, a bulletin board with a list of school staff, ceramic wall tiles and pieces of the gymnasium floor. Andries said she and Thor had gone through the school a couple of times, looking for items that were distinctive, and from the time period when West Side was built.

One part of West Side that is still a bit of a mystery is the school’s cornerstone from 1955. Thor said the plan is for a custodian to help remove the stone from the wall sometime this summer.

“The hope is that there’s something behind it,” like a time capsule, Thor said. It’s possible there’s nothing in there, but Thor and Andries said the stone seemed unusually large and deep, as if it was meant to contain something.

If they do find a time capsule, Thor said it will be opened during the new Southview Elementary’s open house on Aug. 20. Construction of Southview is nearing completion, and the grades 2-4 school will open for the start of classes this fall.

Thor said the move to the new school is “kind of a waiting game right now.” Teachers’ classroom supplies and school furniture are packed up and lining the hallways, ready to be moved. Thor said he and MPS Business Services Director Dion Caron had gone through the furniture at West Side to try and see what could be moved to Southview or re-used elsewhere in the school district.

“We looked at things we felt would fit the design of the new school,” he said.

West Side’s students and faculty said a final farewell to the building earlier this summer, on the last day of school. When West Side is decommissioned, the school building will be torn down. Last spring, Marshall school board members approved a proposal from a developer to demolish the building and convert the location to residential property.

Before West Side is demolished, the Historical Society also plans to move a historic one-room schoolhouse from the grounds, and bring it to the Lyon County fairgrounds in Marshall.