{"id":7134,"date":"2016-05-06T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=7134"},"modified":"2016-05-06T00:51:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-06T05:51:45","slug":"o-is-for-otranto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2016\/05\/o-is-for-otranto\/","title":{"rendered":"O is for Otranto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7135\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/otrantoschool.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/otrantoschool.jpg 650w, https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/otrantoschool-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><br \/>\n<em><strong>September 29, 2015:<\/strong> Iowa&#8217;s Prairie Castle of Otranto. The vines certainly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/magazine-30313775\">add a gothic touch.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The school in tiny Otranto, just south of the Minnesota border, was in use for 50 years and <a href=\"http:\/\/iagenweb.org\/mitchell\/localdat\/otranto1\/otran71.htm\">closed in 1966, according to a reprinted article<\/a> on the Mitchell County IAGenWeb site. That makes this structure a century old this year. According to a <em>Mitchell County Press-News<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/globegazette.com\/mcpress\/news\/local\/all-school-reunion-held-at-otranto\/article_ae6de78e-a0bc-5e15-849a-ff1874d8018a.html\">article from 2006 about an all-school reunion for Otranto,<\/a>* the last high school class graduated in 1943 and after that it was an elementary school. Otranto rejected consolidation with St. Ansgar in 1956, <a href=\"http:\/\/law.justia.com\/cases\/iowa\/supreme-court\/1956\/48988-0.html\">which created a minor problem<\/a> when some of the land planned for the new St. Ansgar Community School District was separated from the rest of the new district. Otranto held on for a while longer \u2014 &#8220;Otranto objects to loss of school under merger&#8221; is a headline in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers.com\/newspage\/9983051\/\"><em>Austin (MN) Daily Herald<\/em> Feb. 27, 1962<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Also in Otranto, an 1899 truss bridge with an unusual design spanning the Cedar River, bypassed in 1999, <a href=\"http:\/\/thebridgehunter.areavoices.com\/2014\/03\/13\/otranto-bridge-in-iowa-gone\/\">was dismantled in March 2014 under mysterious circumstances.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>*That article uses the same history text in the last paragraph as an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austindailyherald.com\/2000\/09\/classmates-gather-in-oranto-for-reunion\/\"><em>Austin Daily Herald<\/em> article from 2000<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/nwa.stparchive.com\/Archive\/NWA\/NWA08272003P10.php\"><em>Northwood Anchor<\/em> article from 2003<\/a>\u00a0about previous Otranto all-school reunions. Hmm&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>September 29, 2015: Iowa&#8217;s Prairie Castle of Otranto. The vines certainly add a gothic touch. The school in tiny Otranto, just south of the Minnesota border, was in use for 50 years and closed in 1966, according to a reprinted &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2016\/05\/o-is-for-otranto\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools","category-sequences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7137,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7134\/revisions\/7137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}