Readin', Ritin', & Rithmatic The 3 R's???

GREETINGS!

I've been gathering information on the early schools here in Oklahoma, and as I said yesterday, I got additional info from the owner of the "corner" store. (Which isn't really on a corner.) So, I'm going to share with you some education trivia from Oklahoma!

I don't know the exact year this began, but we think probably around 1907, the year Oklahoma became a state. All schools were 3 miles apart; this was so that no child had to walk more than a mile and a half to get to school. So from some research I've done on line for Muskogee County, I found 14 schools right here in our area! The three that I am going to talk about most, are on Ross Road, which is the main paved road leading from Hiway 64 to Porum, which is a stretch about 15 miles long.



This (above) is the first school on Ross Road from Hiway 64, and it was called Valley Summit. It is 6 miles from where we enter Ross Road.



If you look real close (above), you'll see part of a white roof line, which is all you can see this time of year due to the trees and bushes. This school is 3 miles from Valley Summit school above, and was called Simms School. It is 3 miles from where we enter Ross Road.

And where we enter Ross Road off County Road 111 is where another school was, called Vann School. You can't see any remains as the owner of the property tore down what was left of the wooden school structure and incorporated the cement block cafeteris section in his brick house.

And so, if you were to keep going there would be another school 3 miles from that school, and so on. Not all the following schools were on Ross Road, but were in the Porum area. Some of the names were: Conley School, Hickory Ridge, Mtn. View, Oak Grove, Ross School, Porum School, Victory School, Briartown, Nowata, Blackjack, etc. There was one called Turpin and Younger Bend School which had a little notoriety in that the infamous Belle Starr (outlaw) bought a piano for the school and introduced classical music to the students. I found online some census reports of 1912 from some of the schools. It listed the head of household, the children in the family and their date of birth and place of residence. The children were born in the 1880's to very early 1900's. The 1912 census was the same year as my Mother was born.

That's all I've got so far, but I find it very interesting. I had never heard of such a thing before and I don't know if it was new to me because we moved to a new State, or what. Maybe there are tidbits like this in the state where you live, and they are just waiting to be uncovered! Do some digging!! Take care and God Bless.