Last week I mentioned a booklet the Fentress County Retired Teachers’ Association published in 1986. I’ve mentioned this book before and I can hardly believe I have not already shared more of it with you because it has a wealth of pictures of the old schools, as well as a number of class photos.

The book includes some short history on a few of the schools and I want to share a couple of those with you soon. Today I’m enthralled with the buildings and the children pictured at them. Now there aren’t good dates on a lot of the old pictures, so you can’t tell if the Long Branch School was built 10 years or 100 years after the log structure that was the Pogue School or Little Mountain School in Shirley.

When did sawmills really start running on the mountain and buildings transitioned from logs to boards? The Hickory Ridge school is dated at 1920 and it’s unique board pattern seems to testify to the pride of sawn lumber, although it still has wooden shingles. The picture of the 1913 class at Martha Washington School has a board background, as does the Pres Beaty School’s 1933 picture.

It’s no surprise that the children pictured at the Pogue School are barefoot, or that the boy in the front row of the Martha Washington School has holes in his stockings. The Martha Washington picture may be 10 years after the Pogue School shot, but I wonder if the presence of so many shoes is more about the season – do you notice there are leaves on the trees at the Pogue school, but a pile of dead leaves have fallen at the feet of the Martha Washington students?

Finally, look at the size of the logs forming the Geutmyer school in 1908! They are hewn smooth, but I doubt they are sawn. And the adult teacher from the top of her head to her elbow, that has to be close to 30 inches. I’m not sure whether I’m more impressed that someone cut and hewed out that log or that they wrestled it into place to form a wall.

This booklet represents a great work by dedicated educators. However, there are some schools omitted that I would love to know more about. Campground had a school for many years, I shared a picture of the old building in last week’s article. I’ve heard about another school in Martha Washington that pre-dated the Martha Washington School pictured here, which was mentioned in the History book. I don’t know the name of it and would love to hear from any reader who has information. I believe it was located about ½ between the Martha Washington Church and Mount Union Church. This school may have been called Hickory Fork, although I’m not at all sure about that.

As always I come away from my research with more questions than answers. Was there a school in Baldwin Gulf? There was a school at Jonesville, near the location of the existing Jonesville Church. Was there any school between Martha Washington and Grimsley? It seems like there would have to have been because I can’t imagine children walking that far – do you know of one?

Finally, this book talks about county schools – although the private secondary schools are mentioned. I wonder if any churches setup independent schools that would not be cataloged in this type of publication.

Please feel free to comment below and enlighten me!