The Spencer Brook School District No. 1 is primarily significant as a rare surviving structure associated with Spencer Brook, a community settled by New Englanders during the earliest phase of Isanti County’s development.
Settlers from New England were the first Euro-Americans to make permanent residences in Isanti County, preceding the better-known and more numerous Swedish immigrants who arrived in the area from the late 1860s to the 1890s. Spencer Brook was settled in the late 1850s, mostly by Mainites, who were engaged in lumbering. The village became the largest settlement of native born Americans in the county. The settlers organized the first rural school in the county in 1858. School enrollment outgrew the homes in which it was first held, and land was purchased in 1874 for a school site and the present building was constructed. The school has been closed since 1945, but the Spencer Brook Historical Association was formed in June 1969 for the purpose of restoring and preserving the schoolhouse.
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