Central Elementary's days drawing to a close

 

For 140 years, children living in the Holton area, at some point in their lives, went to school in a building located near the intersec­tion of Fourth Street and New Jer­sey Avenue. After the end of the current school year, however, that school — Central Elementary School — will cease to exist.

Central School, along with Holton’s Colorado Elementary School, will be replaced by the new Holton Elementary School, which is currently being built west of the existing Colorado School. The new school is scheduled to open for the 2016-17 school year, replacing both Colorado which serves kindergarten through second grade, and Central, which serves grades three through five.

Holton USD 336 Superintendent Dennis Stones said the district is reviewing “five or six options” for what to do with Central School af­ter it is vacated, but “there have been no decisions made yet as to what to do with it.” Stones also noted that a company that “buys schools after someone builds a new one and turns it into apartments” has expressed interest in purchasing the school building.

Central School was first built near the location of the existing school in 1872, 14 years after Holton’s first school was built. Ac­cording to historical records, Holton’s first frame school was built in 1858 at 415 Wisconsin Ave., but lack of space necessitated the construction of a second school.

According to an article printed in the June 9, 1955 edition of The Holton Recorder, Central School was built on the site of the first log structure in Holton, known as Jim Lane’s Fort. The site was one of many such stations established along what was then known as the Lane Trail to protect free-state set­tlers and immigrants from ma­rauding pro-slavery forces.

Originally, the school housed elementary and high school stu­dents, whereas Colorado School housed mainly those attending first through seventh grades.

A newspaper article appearing in 1891 featured a tour of Holton’s school buildings, with the reporter noting Central’s library of “about fourteen hundred volumes of valu­able reference books,” its science laboratory, rooms for geology and chemistry classes and the “high school room,” where students were taught at the time by Oscar Hale.

While the reporter noted the good progress of the students at Central, the building’s “many dis­advantages” were also pointed out in the article. In addition to the sixth-grade class being “dingy and small,” the school also suffered from “the impossibilities of healthful ventilation so essential to successful physican and mental health and improvement.”

In later years, Central School added a west wing to alleviate the lack of space that occurred due to growth.

Central School continued to be used into the 1950s, when plans were in place to build a new Colo­rado School prior to its condemna­tion by the state fire marshal after a fire in 1954. Students from that school were then moved to base­ments at three local churches to at­tend classes prior to the construc­tion of a new school.

Holton residents were then asked to participate in a September 1953 election on the issuance of bonds for the construction of a new Colorado School, but the proposal failed at the polls. The school board then came up with a plan for an­other bond issue to replace both Colorado and Central schools, and another election was held less than two months later. The second pro­posal passed.

Construction on the two new elementary schools began in 1954, with completion of both schools coming the next year, Colorado to be completed first. The new Central School was finished in the spring of 1955, a few months after Colo­rado’s completion, and on June 6, 1955, the old Central School went under the wrecker’s hammer, with the site of the old school to be used for playground space, it was re­ported.

Both schools started as 17,000-square-foot structures that were built identically, made of rein­forced concrete and featuring brick and haydite interior walls. It was reported that each classroom in both buildings had their own drinking fountains and sink, and floor space averaged 900 square feet in each class.

The presentation of the new Central Elementary School was made to the Holton school board on Oct. 10, 1955, on behalf of the architects by Glenn Horst. Horst said the $9.52-per-square-foot cost of con­struction was “exceptionally low for concrete fireproof construction such as that in the new schools here,” it was reported.

The schools were also designed for expansion, and both schools have been expanded over time, with Central’s expansion coming on the north side of the original building. The school now has 13 classrooms, two special education rooms, two preschool rooms and a multi-purpose room, but Central Principal Beth Smith said there is no longer a teachers’ lounge or a conference room.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, board members began to take note of the lack of space at both Central and Colorado, and district voters were given the opportunity to vote in 2003 for an $18.3-million bond issue for the construction of two new schools with a 40-percent cost assist from the state. That bond is­sue was defeated by a margin of more than three votes to one.

The district took a second bond issue proposal to Holton voters in 2008, when the district sought a $21.3-million bond issue for the construction of two new schools and the expansion of high school facilities, this time with a 46-per­cent cost assist from the state. That bond issue also failed at the polls, with 65 percent of district voters opposed to the bond issue.

A third bond issue totaling $21.5 million and with a 55-percent cost assist from the state for the con­struction of the new Holton Ele­mentary School for students in kindergarten through fifth grade passed by more than 175 votes in May of 2014. Construction of the school began earlier this year and is expected to be completed in time for the start of the 2016-17 school year.

The Holton Recorder

109 W. Fourth St.
Holton, KS 66436
Phone: 785-364-3141
 

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