Where Were County's Schools Located in 1934?

Where Were County's Schools Located in 1934?

Do you know where Pumpkin Run, Log Cabin and Bearwallow Schools were half a century ago? We can find the locations of these and some 70 other public schools on an old Madison County Bureau of County Health Work map, which was drawn in 1934. Most of those old county schools were one-room wood structures with no utilities of any kind. In the two previous Saturday columns we named schoolhouses in the east, north, and west quarters of Madison County in 1934, ending up on the Lancaster Road. This week we continue around the southern part of the county in a counter-clockwise direction, listing the schoolhouses between the Lancaster Road and the Irvine Road, where we started. On the left side of Lancaster Road, about two-thirds of the way from Richmond to Paint Lick, was Silver Creek School in 1934. It may have been the schoolhouse which stood deserted for many years on Adams family land. About three miles south of Silver Creek was High Point School. Directly to the east of Silver Creek School was the white Peytontown School and on the next road a little farther to the east was the Peytontown School for black pupils. A couple of miles south of the two Peytontown schools was White's Station School. Starting back at Richmond and going south on the Berea Road, we would have seen Pumpkin Run School on the left, a couple miles out of town. Next were Rogersville School, also on the left, and then Kingston School, located on the Kingston-Big Hill Road, just a short distance from its junction with the Berea Road. Halfway between Kingston and Berea was Hickory Plains Schoolhouse on the right side. On the county road from Berea over to High Point and Silver Creek, we can still see the old 8-grade, 4-room black Middletown School, which was the pride of this community of that name. A half-mile down the road was Todd's Schoolhouse. South of Berea, from west to east, were Wallacetown, West Union, and Scaffold Cane Schools. To the east were the white and black Bobtown schools a half-mile apart, and Blue Lick, Upper Silver Creek, and Big Hill schoolhouses. Log Cabin, Mallory Springs, and Webb Schools were among the hills to the east of Big Hill Road. A couple of miles east of Webb was Beech Grove School, situated very near the three-way place where a point in the Madison County line meets the Estill-Jackson County line. Going northeast from Kingston School in 1934, we should have seen Grove Hill (for black pupils), Speedwell, Estill Station Schools and Oakland Schoolhouse, located about a mile south of the Irvine Road. North of Webb School, more or less parallel to the Estill County line, were Bearwallow, Bark Road, Cedar Cliff and Panola schools. Leaving Panola School, we go north to the black Brassfield School and Dodd's School, and then on to the Irvine Road, where we began two weeks ago. Those were the public schools in Madison 56 years ago.

Dr. Robert Grise

3/2/1991

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