This stereoscopic photograph shows the original Menasha High School circa 1870's. Though someone had written in pencil on the back "about 1860," this is incorrect as the school wasn't even built until 1871 and was demolished in 1896 to make way for the new school which lasted until the great fire of 1936. The photographer is the famous C.B. Manville, who didn't become so well-known for his photography but for his later association with Henry Ward Johns in forming the Johns-Manville Corporation, manufacturers of insulation, roofing materials, and engineered products, most of an asbestos nature. When Manville died in 1927, his estate was worth $150 million.
Manville went to the Black Hills in 1877 to take photographs but also invested in a couple of gold mines and struck it rich before founding Manville Covering Co. Later he merged with Johns. Just another of the many millionaires from Neenah/Menasha.
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