September 23, 2011: The 1920 Geneseo Township school building was featured in a Des Moines Register article on Barb and Dave Else’s book, For All The Small Schools, cataloging Iowa’s abandoned schools. It’s in the small percentage built alone on the plains; others still extant include Lake Center (Clay County) and Milford Township (Story County).
Tama County community enthused over school
TRAER, Jan. 7. — One of the most enthusiastic communities for consolidation of schools in Iowa is Geneseo township, Tama county, It voted in 1919 by a majority of more than four to one for a township consolidated school building and teachers’ dormitory, to cost more than $100,000. On account of the high cost of materials and labor the amount of bonds voted did not cover the cost of construction. This week the Geneseo people voted again on two propositions, the first to issue $28,000 worth of bonds for the completion and equipment of the new building, and second, to levy a ten mill tax for future needs. On the first proposition the vote was unanimous in favor. On the second, all but one voter was in favor of it.
— Cedar Rapids Gazette, January 7, 1921
5 motor busses bought by school directors
TRAER, June 11. — The Geneseo township consolidated school directors closed a deal for the purchase of five Ford busses [sic] with which to transport pupils to and from school. They cost the school a little less than $1,000 each. The board has also decided to use two horse drawn vehicles on other routes.
— Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 11, 1921
[According to Tama County History (1987), the five drivers were the school mechanic, three high school boys, and one high school girl.]
The Geneseo school was dedicated on September 21, 1921, a week after Dinsdale’s.
Traer, Clutier, and Geneseo all opened gymnasium additions in 1955, although Traer’s needed some finishing work in early 1956. The “badly crowded” Geneseo school’s elementary addition, a long one-story extension to the east, was part of the same $190,000 project that built the complex’s second gymnasium (Gazette, 10/10/54).
Geneseo merged with Dysart in 1966. The Waterloo Courier covered the “changes on horizon” January 9 of that year with large photos of the trophy case and students at recess outside the building. Years earlier, a multi-merger among Traer, Clutier, Dysart, Buckingham, and Geneseo was in the official county committee plan.
The last students left Geneseo in spring 1982.