The Dempsie house, was originally a log school building in Ideal Township. It was erected in 1897 and was the first officially organized school on the Whitefish Chain. This original site has been identified on a 1915 Crow Wing County plat map. John Olson dismantled the log building, moved it from its original site east of Norway Ridge Supper Club in the early 1900s, and rebuilt it elsewhere. Mr. and Mrs. Theron Dempsie moved to Ideal in 1943 where they purchased an 80-acre farm where they found the log schoolhouse which had been dismantled, moved and rebuilt by John Olson. The Dempsie family used the log school building as a home.
It was donated to the Crosslake Area Historical Society by Carolyn Carringer and Barbara Eanes, daughters of the late Mr. and Mrs. Theron E. Dempsie. In 1994 the building was once again moved, this time to the Historic Log Village site where the school bell rings again. The building has been restored to its original use, a turn of the century schoolhouse with teacher’s quarters upstairs. A blackboard is hung in the front, flanked on each side by the traditional paintings of presidents Lincoln and Washington! Slates are placed at each desk for students.
