Rumors of the impending demolition of the dilapidated Gardiner Consolidated School are false, according to the landowner who farms the ground around.
“I’m not tearing it down,” said Karl Harris of Bouton. “I’m cleaning up the tress around it so I can farm it more economically.” Harris bought the 5-acre parcel in 2017 from the Spellman family.
“It was just a disaster out there,” he said. “I did tear out the foundation for the old depot and the new depot on the north end of the property.”
The depot foundations were remnants of the days when the Des Moines and Central Iowa Railroad, the electric interurban rail line locally known as the Galloping Goose, stopped at the Gardiner settlement. Passenger service ended in 1949.
Gardiner Consolidated School was built in 1919 and dedicated in 1920. May Hills, longtime Dallas County Superintendent of Schools, delivered an address at the dedication ceremony, and an oyster supper was afterward served.
By the 1950-1951 school year, when Gardiner Consolidated was one of some 41 school districts in Dallas County, 63 students were enrolled in first through eighth grades, with a cost per pupil of $310 annually.
According to the 1952 report, “Reorganization of the Dallas County School Districts,” by Willard Hubert Johnson, “The Gardiner Consolidated District has an area of 19.8 square miles. In 1950-51 it had an assessed valuation of $1,057,491. The building is a modern brick structure with six classrooms (only three are in use at the present time). Two busses transport all their students to and from school. A hot lunch program is provided for the pupils and teachers.”
The last eighth grade class graduated from Gardiner Consolidated School in 1958. The land was sold in 1964, and the schoolhouse has gradually decayed ever since. The Dallas County Assessor’s description of the property in 2012 tells the tale:
“Old brick school house. Roof has fallen in, windows are missing or broken. Land around is being farmed. Change classification from commercial to agricultural. No value on building.”
Harris, who grew up farming with his father around Paton and moved to the Perry area in 1986 at the height of the farm crisis, has farmed the land around the Gardiner Consolidated School since 2012.
“I have no plans at all to tear the building down,” Harris said. “The next thing I would do is take out some more trees around it if I do anything, but I’m not spending any more money on it this year other than clean up what I’ve already done.”
The removal of the trees and revelation of the old school has attracted the notice of passersby and revived in living memories the old school days.
“I’ve had people stop,” Harris said. “I’ve witnessed probably four or five near wrecks out there because people stop or people are slowing way down, and the next car coming behind them just about runs into them.”
