Let’s go rollin’ on the Turkey and Wapsipinicon rivers.
- Due to it name(s), the reorganization history of the school district headquartered in Elkader was elusive.
- First, Elkader and Littleport voted to form the Consolidated Center School District (Clayton County Register, 12/11/52), or possibly the Consolidated Independent Center School District of Elkader (CCR, 1/15/53), or possibly the Independent Central Consolidated School District (CCR, 4/30/53).
- Then a second vote added Elkport-Garber and St. Olaf before the 1953-54 school year began (CCR, 7/16/53).
- In July 1954, which meant it didn’t take effect until July 1955, the district’s territory expanded. According to a legal notice in the CCR on June 24, 1954, the district was to be called Central Community School District, but according to a legal notice on April 21, 1955, the district was to be called Independent Central Community School District. Either way, this is when “Community” was added to the name.
- That’s all separate from adding Volga, which according to the legal notice on January 19, 1961, specified “Central Community School District.”
- “Central Clayton Community School District” was right there the whole time! It’s still available today!
- Also, is there any chance the Elkader Public Library and Clayton County Community History Archive could merge their Advantage Preservation websites?
- Ditto the Carroll Public Library and Carroll County Genealogical Society (Breda, Glidden, and Lake City).
- The vote to form the current Central (Elkader) district took place January 30, 1961 — one day before another vote elsewhere in Iowa to form … Central Community School District of Clinton County. But it very sparingly used “of Clinton County”, even in formal bond language (DeWitt Observer, 2/2/61, 2/12/76, 3/3/04). It preferred calling its sports teams Central DeWitt, and most everyone humored them until the 2014 boys’ state basketball tournament, when due to a character limit on the ribbon scoreboard the team appeared as “CClinton” and that sent the entire district into a tizzy. I am not making this up.
- That 2004 bond issue for a new high school building, despite substantial support in letters to the editor, was destroyed in Low Moor, Grand Mound and Welton (DWO, 3/13/04). Welton’s school, the only one left outside DeWitt, closed in 2005 (DWO, 6/11/05).
- The 1961 creation of the district left two “donut holes”, one-room schools that did not participate in the consolidation vote. One was named Unity, between DeWitt and Grand Mound, and the other was North DeWitt, north of the city. They did not officially become part of Central until 1966 and were Clinton County’s last one-room schools. (DWO, 11/24/60, 7/21/66, 9/1/69)