The timeline is now going so far back I’ve found buildings I didn’t know existed, in map dots that either aren’t on the state map now or were never there.
- Allerton’s school got condemned by the state fire marshal (Centerville Iowegian and Citizen, 11/5/70) and ordered to close at the end of the 1970-71 school year. A bond issue vote to keep a kindergarten there didn’t reach supermajority (Iowegian, 6/3/71).
- Nishna Valley closed sites in Henderson and Strahan (intersection of M16 and H46) in 1971 (Red Oak Express, 3/5/73). Both are gone now, although the Henderson gym remains.
- Webster City moved all regular classes out of Duncombe in 1971 (DFJ, 8/25/71) and turned the building over to the city in 1974 (DFJ, 4/9/74). The gym, 20 years old at the time (DFJ, 7/27/72), remains the town community center to this day.
- The town of Duncombe is part of the Webster City district and not to be confused with either the old or new (2018) Duncombe Elementary in Fort Dodge.
- Kinross’ school appears to have closed in 1971 (Cedar Rapids Gazette, 6/9/74)
- The Cedar Rapids Prairie (College Community) school website says Ely, Shueyville, and Walford closed in 1972. This is a year off. Prairie View Elementary opened in fall 1971, meaning those schools and Swisher closed slightly earlier. (The Prairie website lists Ely twice and omits Swisher.) This brought all students to the campus on 76th Avenue SW in Cedar Rapids, with an enrollment of 2959 (Cedar Rapids Gazette, 8/22/71). It’s now the 18th-largest district in Iowa.
- Speaking of the Cedar Rapids area, Palo is among the last-minute mergers, joining Cedar Rapids in 1966, and losing its school in 1973 (CRG 3/13/73).
- Eagle Grove closed the Thor and Woolstock schools in 1972 (Eagle Grove Eagle, 10/14/71), although the Woolstock school prematurely closed itself the first week of January, when the boiler sprung yet another leak (EGE, 1/6/72). The Woolstock school was torn down in either late 1981 or early 1982 (EGE, 6/16/82).
- Ottosen’s school closed in 1972 (Kossuth County Advance, 2/7/72)
- Viola Center, in the northeast corner of Audubon County, closed in 1973 (Atlantic News-Telegraph, 12/16/72). It was a prewar-type brick school so in the middle of nowhere that its entrance wasn’t on the paved road (N36), but the gravel intersecting road. I had never heard of it, and minutes after discovering it, learned it was torn down last year. In 1968, the school had seven sets of twins attending.
- Hayes (Township) is another rural school I discovered in this project. It is on 100th Avenue half a mile south of C65 on the south side of Storm Lake (the lake). Its IAGenWeb page says the building was built in 1941 after a fire. It says elementary classes ended in 1973, but that actually happened a year earlier (Storm Lake Pilot-Tribune, 3/22/72).
- Hancock’s school probably closed in 1973, after a new 7-12 school was built in Avoca (A Community History of Avoca, 1994)
- Anthon-Oto closed the elementary building in Anthon — the original high school — in 1974 (Mapleton Press, 4/25/74)
- Conroy’s school closed in 1974 (CRG, 9/19/74)