School timeline mega-update: 1968-70, plus compilations

Posted on Friday, September 17, 2021, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


August 16, 2016: “There will be an informal opening of the new gymnasium at the Sharpsburg school on Saturday evening, October 10, at 8:00 o’clock [sic]. A snappy program is planned, followed by a lunch consisting of sandwiches, pie, pickles and coffee.” — Lenox Time Table, October 8, 1936

“The exodus of high school graduates from the county has become so universal that Mount Ayr high school seniors were given a special guest lecture this year on urban living.” — Des Moines Register, May 24, 1970

Everything Many things you wanted to know about the United and Mount Ayr community school districts, but didn’t know how to ask:

  • It took the United Community School District, between Ames and Boone, TEN bond issue votes before finally getting a centralized building in January 1968 (Ames Daily Tribune, 12/15/64).
    • United started as a merger between Jordan and Napier (ADT, 4/16/55) and added Luther in 1957 (ADT, 5/1/57).
    • I believe the Luther school closed at the end of the 1967-68 school year, and students moved to Jordan. It was gone by fall 1969 for sure (ADT, 9/5/69).
    • In between approving a bond issue for a new high school and it actually opening, voters scuttled a tripleheader East Boone merger with Boone and Madrid (ADT, 4/6/66).
    • Then another bond issue for an elementary addition (ADT, 11/16/71) replaced Jordan and Napier by fall 1973 (ADT, 10/12/73) …
    • … three years before everything in Jordan was wiped off the face of the earth by a tornado a mile wide, one of two F5s in Iowa in the Fujita scale era and notorious for being caught on film spinning counterclockwise.
  • Nichols, like Atkins, existed independently after mid-1966 because of litigation. A “long series of legal actions related to an attempt to reorganize the Nichols District” (Lone Tree Reporter, 1/11/68) meant that the school remained independent for two extra years. Lone Tree’s attempt to get at least part of the district failed and Nichols went to West Liberty (LTR, 8/29/68).
  • Sharpsburg’s school closed on February 2, 1968 (Lenox Time Table, 2/1/68). It followed a dizzying array of bond issue votes, including multiple ones between December 1962 and November 1963, that eventually led to a new high school building in Lenox and all elementary grades moving to the old school there.
    • Two rural school buildings — Grant No. 4 in Adams County and Grant No. 3 in Taylor County — were brought in and placed right next to the Sharpsburg gym in 1965 so Lenox could stop renting space in the American Legion building. “The board emphasized that this was a temporary measure.” (LTT, 7/8/65) They remain there to this day and can be seen from old IA 49.
    • Yes, Adams and Taylor County both have Grant Townships, separated only by Platte Township in the northeast corner of Taylor County.
  • Schools in Joice, Hayfield, and Leland all closed in 1968 (Forest City Summit, 5/2/68 and 5/16/68). Leland was torn down the following spring (FCS, 3/27/69, and personal visit to site)
    • Leland’s gym was 18 years old (FCS, 3/27/69). Hayfield’s elementary addition was 16 years old (FCS, 4/5/51). Joice’s elementary addition was 9 years old (FCS, 3/19/59).
  • Beaver’s school closed at Christmas break in 1968, two years after being assigned to Ogden (The Globe-Free Press and Paton Portrait and Rippey News, 1/9/69)
  • Morley’s school closed in 1968 (Anamosa Journal, 2/26/68)
    • Its second-to-last news item was about a boy injured by flying glass during a storm on the same day as the Charles City tornado (AJ, 5/20/68). Its last news item was the city of Morley taking it over and demolishing the main building to leave the gym as a community center (Anamosa Eureka, 6/18/70).
    • The Martelle, Morley, and Viola districts were all cut up in 1961-62, with Anamosa getting the towns and other districts getting land.
  • Rhodes’ school closed in 1969 (State Center Enterprise, 4/24/69). The West Marshall board voted and rescinded the move in the same meeting a year earlier (SCE, 3/14/68). Finding this took a little extra work as the SCE’s images for 1969 are so illegible only headlines get picked up by the digital reader.
  • Grant’s school closed over Christmas break in 1969-70 as students moved to a new building in Griswold (Griswold American, 1/7/70).
  • The school in Farson, an unincorporated village 10 miles west of Packwood, closed in 1970 (Richland Clarion, 1/15/70)
  • Ringgold County, all presently part of Mount Ayr (formed 1958):
    • Beaconsfield’s school closed in 1960, two 1961, three years after its last high school class (IAGenWeb)
    • Redding’s school closed in 1970 (IAGenWeb)
    • Maloy’s school closed in 1972 (IAGenWeb)
    • Tingley’s school closed in early 1980 and was demolished in late 1980 (IAGenWeb)
    • The school in Benton (a small town on IA 2) was demolished in 1982 (IAGenWeb), but its closure year is ambiguous. Mount Ayr was using it for sixth-graders at least through 1977 (IAGenWeb). Mount Ayr passed a bond issue in early 1979 (Des Moines Register, 2/14/79) so I assume Benton closed in spring 1980, when an addition opened, along with Tingley.
    • Said bond issue came after a state inspector condemned the oldest part of Mount Ayr’s complex in November 1977 and classes were scattered in other buildings throughout town (DMR, 2/19/79) …
    • … and also sent to the Ellston school. Despite being the newest building in the district it had been officially closed in 1970 (DMR, 7/12/70) but got junior high back for a few years (DMR, 2/1/78). It probably closed again in spring 1980.
    • Delphos’ school was demolished in 1991 (IAGenWeb)
    • The 1936 portion of the Mount Ayr school was demolished in 2010 (Mt. Ayr Record News via IAGenWeb)
  • The Harlan Community School District, which added towns in the western half of Shelby County, formed by vote in 1966 (Harlan Tribune, 6/23/66). Four towns — Defiance, Earling, Panama, and Portsmouth — kept kindergartens but ONLY kindergartens until sometime after 1970. I don’t have an end date because Harlan archives end that year right now.

UPDATE 1/21/22: Adjusted Beaconsfield based on new information.

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