One-Room Schools Closing 60 Years Ago
After the Civil War, there were as many as 25 one-room schools educating rural students in the Windsor four-county area which included Benton, Henry, Johnson, and Pettis Counties. Each one-room school was located in the middle of a school district planned so that students would not walk more than three miles to school.
As student enrollment decreased and bus transportation became available, some of the rural schools began to close in the 1950s or earlier. The number of rural school closings in the Windsor area accelerated in the 1960s, and the last public one-room schools closed in 1966 to consolidate with the Windsor R-1 District. [1]
Baird Rand wrote a news column, “Musings of an Old Timer,” in the 1960s for THE WINDSOR REVIEW. In November 15, 1962, he described his experience as a student at Oak Dale School, using these words, “The most important day of my life occurred in the first week of September, 1895, my first day of school. Also, I believe the most important school house ever constructed was Oak Dale, located four miles south of Windsor, on the Roseland Road.” [2]
The Oak Dale school house he described had been built in 1887 and would accommodate 30 students. The first Oak Dale school house was a log structure, built in the mid 1870s, located one-half mile west of the present Oak Dale School. After the new Oak Dale was built on the Roseland Road, Charley Jones operated a broom factory in the old log building.[2]
Rand attributed the demise of the one-room school to the automobiles which made the horse and buggy obsolete. He concluded, “Now many years later consolidation and bus transportation are slowly but surely forcing the abandonment of rural school houses.” [2]
He described what happened to Oak Dale: “Oct. 29, 1951, a special school election was held to decide the fate of the Oak Dale School District, whether it should be dissolved or consolidated with Windsor R-1. Result: 151 votes for consolidation—26 against.” Mrs. Betty (Clevenger) Maxwell taught the last term at Oak Dale in the spring of 1952, and elementary Oak Dale students were bussed into Windsor in the fall of 1952. The building continued to be used for Extension Club and township meetings until about 1960 when it was no longer being used. Eventually the school building was sold, and later a modern home was built on the former school property. [2]
Baird Rand recalled the school’s past, “For more than a half century, Oak Dale school house served a dual purpose, a combination school and community hall – where farm folk frequently gathered in the spirit of fellowship, to share the entertainment provided by box suppers, pie suppers, stage plays, spelling bees, mock court trials, debates, and the crowning event, a huge Christmas tree where the entire student body participated with poems and dialogues.” He concluded that the Oak Dale School would remain in the memories of past generations long after the old school building was gone. [2]
It is nearly 60 years since the last one-room public rural schools closed in the Windsor area. The Windsor Historical Society June program, “Remembering One-Room Schools,” will be held on Saturday, June 14, in the Windsor Historical Museum, 214 W. Benton Street. Lunch will be served at 12:15 p.m., followed at 1:00 p.m. with a business meeting and then a program to be presented by former rural school students and relatives of former rural students sharing their memories of attending one-room schools. Persons are invited to bring photos and mementos of one-room schools, if available. The public is invited, and there is no charge to attend.
Sources: [1] THE WINDSOR REVIEW, (1950-1966). [2] “Oakdale Still Center of Community Activity,” THE WINDSOR REVIEW, Nov. 15, 1962
