Kansas One Room
School House Project
Wayne -- Republic County

I have information about a onerous school house that I thought you might
want to consider adding to your site.

Wayne School (3)
Grant Twp
RP
1871
1965
First - J C Rainey
Last - Mary Anthony

Information from the book HOMELAND SCHOOLS, compiled by the Republic
County Retired Teachers Association, published by The Telescope
Publishing Co., Inc., Belleville, Kansas, 1977

"District Number Three dates back to the year 1871 when school was held
in a small log building located on the present site of the Union
Cemetery which is a mile south of Wayne.  Only a short term was held in
this building as the Fairview School District 3 was built on what is now
the Mrs. Josie Way farm adjoining the present town of Wayne on the
south.

During the life of the Fairview School, it was sometimes too small to
accommodate the great number of pupils, so the Fairview Church was used
for school.  This building is still standing and is used for a barn on
the Way farm.

After the Burlington Railroad came through in 1884 the name of Fairview
was changed to Wayne by the Company.  The Fairview building is now a
part of the Jim Cherney home.  In 1885 school was begun in a new
two-story frame building shown at the top of this page (without a door
in the south) and the second picture was taken after the door was
added.  There were 128 pupils and two teachers.  This was a "boom
period" for Wayne and it had many thriving industries in the heart of
good farmlands.

There were four rooms in the two story school and in 1909 a two year high
school was added to serve the community for a little more than ten years
when roads improved and students went to other four year schools.

The stucco finished school was built in the north part of Wayne in 1922
with three rooms to also provide some high school courses a short time.

Over the 94 years that this school was in operation, there have been 121
different teachers and well over 1,000 different pupils who attended
Wayne.  Due to progress and changing times, in 1865 FINIS has to be
written to School District 3.

The building was then used as a community meeting place and voting
center for Grant Township.  A fire destroyed the building on February
22, 1970 after it had served for 48 years.  The grass had grown up
around the building.  While the cleanup was in progress, sparks from a
grass fire were blown onto the roof and could not be extinguished.  Fire
trucks for this rural area were not yet available in 1970.

Memories are all that are left of the school that flourished for a
century and then vanished from the scene where it had been an integral
part of the life in and around Wayne."
_______________________________________________

My great grandfather (Olof Englund) owned the section of land where the
first school was built, followed by the Union Hill Cemetery (where my
great, great grandmother - Carrie Englund aka Catharina Olsdotter is
buried).

My grandfather and grandmother (Henry and Anna Albertina Broden Englund)
also served on the school board and the finance committee that built the
new school in 1922.

If you have a moment to view the site at
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/republic/Swedish/WSD3.html (Wayne School
District No. 3 Homecoming - July 7, 1953), you will see a listing of
students, teachers, and board members from 1872-1965.  Of course,
information was added after the homecoming and have been compiled since
1953).

I hope you will add this information to the one room school house web
site.  If you would like a photocopy of the pages from the HOMELAND
SCHOOLS about Wayne School District 3, please provide your snail mail
address and I will be happy to forward photocopies to you.

Patricia Adams
Site Developer of The Swedish Connection in Kansas
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/republic/swede.html

Saturday, October 13, 2001 8:11 PM

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