Volume 11 , Issue 52

4th Week of January 2009 Summary

During the fourth and last week of January 2009, we learned of the passing of our Uncle John Smith of Chester, Oklahoma, and John's Mobile Service at the Cottonwood Corners in Major county. We also did some research of the county high schools in Oklahoma Territory. Such as ? Most of those ready for high school were not within walking, riding distance of secondary schools of any sort. Only a few attended the preparatory department of public colleges where tuition was free. Very few towns were able to provide high school facilities and the private and church schools were few and small."

Oklahoma had several counties that voted on proposals to establish county high schools under a law enacted in 1901 and repealed in 1909. Four counties organized and operated under this law. In 1919, another county established a high school under a law enacted to meet its needs. It was between 1903 and 1935 that Oklahoma had five county high schools operating from 4 to 26 years each.

Besides county high schools, the Territorial Legislature tried two other methods of bringing secondary education sufficiently near to the homes of the youth. These were called the township high schools and the consolidated district.

1. Township High Schools -- The township high school was authorized by the 1st Territorial Legislature, in 1891, and repealed by the 2nd Assembly, in 1893. It was under this proposal, each congressional Township, six miles square, included four common school districts, each three miles square. A township board coordinated the work of the four district boards and operated a high school, in the center of the township. Some townships did not began a high school during these two years.

2. Consolidated Districts -- In 1905, the Territorial Legislature enacted a law which permitted two of more districts to combine, when approved by a majority of the voters in the areas affected. A centrally located school offered high school subjects as well as upper elementary grades.The consolidated district was often built around a town district, which already had a high school, though some were strictly rural. The Oklahoma reorganization law, enacted by the 22nd Legislature and amended by the 23rd, discontinued the consolidated district as a legalized unit. By 1950, improved roads and transportation shifting of population to town, and other causes contributed to make the consolidated district less and less needed.

3. County High Schools -- It was in 1901, county high school law was enacted by the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature and amended in 1903. Between 1905-1933 there were at least six other laws dealing with county high schools. Two of these were concerned mainly with Cimarron County, in the Panhandle. Others dealt with disposal of funds or property of schools that had been discontinued.

Pupils living too far from the school to reach it daily from their homes usually lived during the week in the school town, returning home over the week end to care for laundry needs, replenish food supply, or sometimes to help with the farm work. A good many boarded in homes or in clubs or did light housekeeping. Some kept house for owners children and those of neighbors, returning home most weekends and at the close of the school year. I know this is what my mother, Vada Paris, did when she attended high school in Seiling, Oklahoma.

During this last week of January 2009, we learned about the Woods County High school (1905-1907). On November 8, 1904, Woods County electors voted, 2,509 to 2,104, to establish a county high school. The 1903 amendment permitted county commissioners to locate a school not already located by the terms of the election. This was a time when Woods, Alfalfa and Major counties were still a part of "M" county -- before the split in 1907 at statehood.

A local county commissioner induced the other two members to locate the school at Helena if the people voted its establishment. This was a small town and in an area rather remote from much of the county's population. Because of this, the school was doomed to have much difficulty in drawing sufficient enrollment.

In January, 1905, the newly appointed trustees made plans to erect a building of 32 rooms on 15 acres of campus just outside Helena. The next legislature passed a law authorizing Dick's Township to vote bonds for the erection and equipment of Woods County High School, Helena, Oklahoma .... in the sum of $5,000.

The name had been changed to Alfalfa County High School. The tax payers of Alfalfa county found the cost of retiring bonds and operating the school more than they could bear. On December 14, 1909, Alfalfa county voted, 1,433 to 144, to discontinue the high school which had already closed the previous spring, and to give the campus and buildings to the State.

The Connell School of Agriculture, one of the six secondary agricultural schools in the new State, was already using the school plant. When that school's appropriation was cut off in 1917, Connell closed, its property then was given to the Helena District. In 1921, the State bought the property from the Helena District to open a State orphanage, called West Oklahoma State Home.

You can view more of the OkieLegacy, "Archives" for Vol. 11, January 2009.
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