You probably haven’t heard of Gardiner. But if you’ve driven US 169 in Dallas County, you saw the extinct map dot’s once pride and joy, a two-story brick school building.
Stories, with pictures, from the Perry News and Raccoon Valley Radio indicate the long-abandoned school has finally been demolished. It was done in controlled burns over Christmas break 2019-20. The building’s wood and remnants of window frames were consumed in 2018 in a controlled burn by the landowner, who is also Bouton’s fire captain.
The Perry News says the last eighth-grade class graduated in 1958, and that is correct but doesn’t end the story. That year, part of the district containing the school became the northernmost part of the Central Dallas school district. The school was used for a few elementary grades for three more years, and even had a playground. Its closure was covered in a long article with photos in the Perry Daily Chief on June 15, 1961. A “rump” part of the Gardiner district in Spring Valley Township that did not join Central Dallas joined Perry in 1964, along with Bouton and others.
Today, though, the Gardiner school land is a border property in the Perry school district. The migration must have happened in 1993, when Central Dallas merged with Adel-DeSoto to become Adel-DeSoto-Minburn. (Central Dallas might actually have been the better name, given the spread of the new district, but the little fish has little say in how the big fish wants to address itself.) A Perry Chief article October 3, 1991, is about residents on the fringes of Central Dallas wanting to be moved to Perry. That would make the Gardiner school a notable example of when that type of thing happens.