Research by Sue Leslie, secretary of the Dallas County Area Retired School Personnel Association, and Myrna Griffith, director of the Woodward Public Library.
As settlers moved into the Iowa territory, they continued to prioritize their children’s education. The first schoolhouse in Dallas County was built in Adel Township during the winter of 1847-1848. Located some two to three miles east of the present location of Adel, it was one of the nine schools in the township. The square, 16’ x 16’ log cabin was built by W. W. Miller at his own expense.
According to “Past and Present of Dallas County,” the log cabin had “a clapboard roof, puncheon floor, puncheon seats and desks and a sod-and-stick chimney which stood outside the building.”
In the fireplace, which occupied one end of the building, “a great fire was built of logs and dry limbs of trees, which was kept blazing all day long for the comfort of the inmates. In order that it might not be all darkness within, a log was cut out on either side and a kind of elongated window was formed about 1×10 or 12 feet in size. A door made of puncheons and hung on wooden hinges closed the entrance against rain and cold.”
Interestingly, no mention is made of covering the windows.
This school was free for all who desired to send their children. Stephen K. Scovell was employed as the first school teacher in the county. He made $8 per month plus board. That first school was torn down and replaced with a more modern school just a few rods southwest of the first. A granite marker just north of U.S. Highway 6 now marks the location of the replacement school, named the Miller School.
Hazel Whitney taught at the new Miller School, built in 1939. She signed a one-year contract for $75 a month with the written stipulation that if she were to marry during the year, the contract would be cancelled.
This was interesting language because Whitney was replacing a married teacher. She offered school programs in the fall and at Christmas, and she once chased a bat from the building, according to the old records. Joining her students one spring was Betty Orton and her niece, Norma Leidtke, who traveled with the Orton Circus. They had been taking correspondence courses while on the road.
Adel #5, built in 1920, was located two miles south and a half-mile east of Dallas Center in Section 23. According to Robert Cadwell, “Mary Miller started teaching at this school in 1928 and taught there for 15 years. The school closed in 1945, and the building was moved to the Dallas Center High School in 1946 for classrooms along with two other rural schools. The Adel #5 school building still remains located on the Dallas Center School property.”
Located just east of Ortonville was Adel #6. Darlene Pitsenbarger attended that school from the third grade through eighth grade in the 1930s. Since there were not enough children to open the school in her early years, she attended Waukee school from kindergarten to second grade. Darlene and her sister walked to school and, since the school was close to the railroad, they would see how far they could walk on the rails without falling off.
In the fall, Ortonville was the winter home of the Orton Circus, and that brought two Orton girls to Adel #6. Darlene remembers that the girls’ father taught several of the girls at the school to tap dance. They did so well that they were invited to perform on the stage of the RKO Orpheum Theatre in Des Moines.
In an ongoing effort to preserve the history of our township schools, we are seeking information on the names and locations of the other schools in Adel Township. If you have any information about these schools, such as their location or stories of students who attended them, our group would like to hear from you. Please contact Myrna Griffith at wpldirector@minburncomm.net or Sue Leslie at densueles@aol.com.
