Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

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.

From the Sun-Courier, on last month’s Gladbrook-Reinbeck school board meeting:

Bid documents were approved for the demolition of the vacant school building in Gladbrook. The project is currently out for bid through Align Architecture. The project would seek to remove everything that is contained on the school property except for the sidewalks.

Much, but not all, of the Gladbrook school complex — including the gym — dates to a $315,000 addition in 1953. The pool was built in 1967. The school, town, and state plowed $548,000 into a fitness center on the south side in 2007-08.

The demolition is unrelated to a vote on extension of the G-R Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) for 2024-34. On March 1, Reinbeck overwhelmingly voted for the PPEL and, in a sign of continued bad blood, Gladbrook overwhelmingly voted against.

North Tama doesn’t have a PPEL, which will be a factor in its attempt to embark on a massive infrastructure project. South Tama’s PPEL lost by one vote in 2013. The plan for a new middle school is a bond issue, and it was approved March 1.

More people voted on South Tama’s bond issue than Clear Creek Amana’s, where they’re getting yet another elementary school.

The East Sac school district adjusted its building timeline after voting to close the Wall Lake school in February 2020. The old(er) school in Sac City, used as East Sac Middle School, had its closure delayed one year and will close this May. That comes from an IowaWatch story that also mentions Elma wants to turn its old school into a community center/library.

Wall Lake’s school either just has been or is soon to be partially demolished. The school district sold the building to the town last summer for $1 — and paid $178,300 for asbestos removal. The building’s interior was picked clean in September, as KCIM reported about public sales. The city of Wall Lake got an Iowa DNR Derelict Building Program grant to tear down the school, although in the May 24 City Council minutes it was mentioned that not all will be.

(Side note: Rake received a DNR grant for demolition of the gymnasium there. The roof fell in about five years ago, judging by aerial photos. The main school building is long gone.)

About a year ago, the Carroll Times Herald had a story about East Sac’s construction plans. Additions are being constructed at both the remaining Sac City school and the Lake View school, and grades will be divided K-6 and 7-12, respectively. That article says the middle school is open this year, because the projects aren’t expected to be done until this fall. The superintendent told the paper that a goal is to tear down the oldest (1920s) part of the Lake View complex later.

In February 2020, East Sac’s March newsletter was released, with lunch menus and notification that April 9 and 14 would be snow make-up days. That was before a different type of destruction.