Woods County Schools - 1904
This information from The Alva Pioneer, Souvenir Edition & Historical Album - Tenth Anniversary, Alva, Okla., January 1, 1904, Woods County, Oklahoma Territory.
First School…
J. W. Buckles, a young man from Harper, Ks., begun a subscription school, Oct. 16, 1903, in a little building 12 by 12 feet on the corner where W. F. Hatfield's dwelling house once stood. This was thought to be the first school taught in the Cherokee Strip.
Woods County Schools… In 1904 Woods lead all other counties in the way of educational advantages for its young people. The Normal at Alva was the greatest institution of learning in the southwest and was thought during the 1904 time era to become one of the foremost normal schools in the country.
Also in 1904, the people of Woods county had built and maintained 262 district school houses, and the schools taught in them were in every way as good as those in the States and prepared the boys and girls for the higher school at Alva. With a full corps of competent teachers to draw from every school in the county had the opportunity of good teachers and every child could acquire a good common school education right at home and enjoy the privileges to attend a great normal school within the county. The people of Woods county had built wisely when they built their school houses almost before they had comfortable houses to live in. The 287 school districts in the county back in 1904 were nearly all supplied with teachers.
Credit To Gov. Steele - Oklahoma Owes Thanks for Good Work Done... Oklahoma is the first territory that was ever given permission to lease her public schhool lands and collect the rentals. When one notes the income of about $400,000 annually from this source, they may realize how much this means for Oklahoma, and how much the public school would have suffered had they not had it. Few people know that the credit for securing this magnificent revenue for the public school of Oklahoma rests with the first territorial governor George W. Steele, of Indiana, who was defeated for the senatorship from that state.
At the time when he was governor of Oklahoma it was the custom to leave the school lands idle and not give a territory permission to lease them until it was admitted as a state. The work done during his term of governor that has ultimately resulted in the most good to the territory was his securing for Oklahoma the permission to lease her school lands, and it is just that he should receive the credit for this.
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