Historic Schoolhouses
of Cherokee, Iowa
of Cherokee, Iowa
This was the first Garfield school, a 10 room building with a furnace, hastily built in 1884 to replace New Cherokee's first actual schoolhouse located west of the tracks on Pine Street between Willow and Cedar that burned in 1883. That first school was a 4 room 2-story frame building that was known as the "White School" and it had been built in 1872. Before that, school in New Cherokee was in an old saloon on Main Street beginning in 1870 and before that in the log cabin of Mrs. Lemuel Parkhurst during the summer months starting in 1858 in Old Cherokee. The Garfield school was built in the 500 block of West Cedar and many townspeople bemoaned the fact that it was so far from town and surrounded by pasture however it was soon bordered by new houses. It cost $18,650 to build and was razed in 1934 when the second Garfield school was built on the same site. The photo was taken on November 12, 1903 by Will R. Johnson and shared courtesy of Cherokee Area Archives.
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Here is a photo of Webster School from 1903 taken by Will Johnson. This part of town, then known as the Huxfordville Addition, was growing rapidly. This school was built in 1890 and opened in January 1891 replacing a much smaller 4 room frame schoolhouse that had sat on the site since 1881. It was first known as the east side or "Addition" school until 1895 when the new school that would become Lincoln was being built. The City decided that all three city schools should have unique names - hence Garfield, Webster, & Lincoln. The street that was in front of the Webster School was first known as "Section Road". C. A. Stiles who lived nearby proposed to the city council that it should be renamed Roosevelt Avenue. Webster School was originally red brick but received a coat of cream colored paint in later years. After a severe storm in 1928 the gabled roof and turret were removed. The front addition many of you probably remember best was added in 1955 and then expanded when the old structure was razed in 1972. Photo from the files of the Cherokee Area Archives.
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The Lincoln
An early photo of old Lincoln School built in 1895 to educate Cherokee's rapidly growing population. This photo shows how the building originally looked. The turret and attic area would later be removed after storm damage and from then on it was a flat roof building. In the mid 1950's, students attending this school would remember plaster dropping on their head whenever anyone walked around on a floor above. The building was demolished in 1965 after be ruled unsafe. |
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