Here’s a collection of information regarding a present-day district on Iowa’s western border and a town almost at Iowa’s southern border. Thanks for referring to my website, Westwood sixth-graders in 2020-21! Here’s your pingback of sorts!
(BTW, if anyone has information on Central Decatur, let me know. Its original consolidation is eluding me. I think I have it narrowed to the 1957-62 range.)
- Westwood, in western Woodbury County (although the name is supposed to be related to UCLA basketball), voted for consolidation early enough in 1960 that it should have started up that fall, but apparently it was delayed until 1961. (Sioux City Journal, 5/9/60)
- Before Westwood there was Holly Springs-Hornick, for six years (SCJ, 2/1/55).
- One article says Holly Springs closed in the 1960s (SCJ, 11/22/14) but this is off by at least a few years. Both Holly Springs and Hornick buildings were active as late as 1970, when all five Westwood schools were closed due to a bomb threat (SCJ, 4/4/70). The Holly Springs property was disposed of in spring 1974 (SCJ, 3/2/74, 4/7/74), so it could have closed any time between 1970 and 1974.
- Smithland’s school closed in 1981 (Mapleton Press, 5/28/81)
- Salix’s school closed in 1988 (Westwood website). All signs point to Hornick being used until 1988 as well, when a K-12 school that had been proposed in one form or another since 1969 opened after a bond vote was approved on the eighth try. (SCJ, 1/21/86, 10/15/86)
- Van Wert, originally tagged to be part of Central Decatur in early 1966, managed to get itself attached to Clarke of Osceola instead (Osceola Tribune, 4/5/66, 8/9/66).
- The best, and perhaps only, newspaper photo of Van Wert’s original school came when a hailstorm blew out 75% of its windows in 1961 (OT, 4/25/61). That means the vast majority of the windows were practically brand new when it closed.
- “If the joint boards set the independent districts into the Clarke Community district, the local schools will gain an all brick school building in good repair, including an excellent new gymnasium addition.” (OT, 5/3/66) Instead, Clarke moved Van Wert’s elementary students to Weldon, despite not selling Van Wert until 1970. (Osceola Sentinel, 5/14/70)
- The alternative was keeping Osceola’s elementary students in a building constructed in 1868 that stayed in use until 1971. (OS, 12/10/70)
- A quarter-century later, Weldon faced the loss of its school, doomed for extinction through non-compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act. “Will it look like Van Wert? That’s what scares me the worst,” said a city councilman. (Osceola Sentinel Tribune, 10/14/93)
- That OST article erroneously says the Van Wert building was sold “three years after consolidation in 1958.” As noted previously and above, it was sold four years after consolidation in 1966.
- Perhaps the quote contributed to the Van Wert building’s demolition by the end of the decade. The once “excellent” gymnasium addition remained until the early 2010s.