The Red Oak school district is relocating its middle school students to the school complex on the north side of the city, but the current facility won’t be demolished when students depart for the last time this summer. KMA reports that tax credits have been granted to turn the building into apartments, and the booster club wants to keep the gym (built in 1954) available for community activities.
The photo with the story, and a previous story, made it obvious that the building dates to my favorite era of school construction. I was so right it hurts — a story in the Red Oak Sun about the new high school’s dedication in December 1917 sits above a half-page ad promoting Liberty Bonds. “The construction is of concrete and steel and absolutely fire-proof.”
According to the July 28, 1916, Red Oak Express, Wagenknecht and Walter of Wathena KS made a bid of $76,890, not including plumbing, heating, ventilation, and vacuum cleaner, which went to the Van Dyck Company of Des Moines for $16,205. Adjusted for inflation, that works out to $2.05 million a century later, when Waukee spent $24 million on a building exclusively for eighth- and ninth-graders.
Further research shows the current Red Oak High School opened in 1969. That means that in 2022, the “new” high school will pass the “old” high school in longevity.
Further further research finds the opening of that school resulted in the closure of not only the building in Coburg (1969), but two places so extinct they don’t even get names on the DOT Montgomery County map: Wales Center (1970), on M37 south of H12 in the northwest corner of the county, and Stennett (1969), two miles east of the intersection of IA 48 and H20. The gym for the former still exists. The latter was abandoned, the gym caught fire in 2000 (according to the Express) and the rest was reduced to a bare patch on the landscape in 2010-11 (according to aerial photos).