July 7, 2015: The closed Hampton-Dumont Intermediate School in Dumont. The lighter-colored concrete portion with the school name is where the connection to the original school building was; that part was demolished in the 2005-06 school year.
The passage of a bond issue in 2004 made the closing of Hampton-Dumont’s site in Dumont a matter of time. The voters in Dumont probably knew it, too, because they had voted in large numbers against the referendum before — twice in 2002 alone. The main thrust of the bond issue was to build a new middle school in Hampton, because the existing one had assorted age and Americans with Disabilities Act issues.
The Mason City Globe-Gazette quoted Superintendent Lee Morrison in 2004, when a $7.9 million bond issue passed: “I think they realized we have a commitment to that building,” referring to the fear expressed by some Dumont voters that their school building would be closed.
But by 2009, after the new middle school had opened, HD’s enrollment had dipped about 5% since 2000. That was enough for the school district to decide to end attendance at Dumont, which by then was down to fourth-graders only.
When I saw the building in 2015, except for the grass in the asphalt play area and slightly-too-big foliage close to the building, the Dumont school looked like it could have been in use yesterday and reactivated tomorrow. Archived stories from the Globe-Gazette used for this blog post also merited some tweaks to the Hampton and Dumont year entries on my school timeline.