Schools - Douglas County KSGenWeb

The Douglas County KS Rural and One Room School collection was contributed by Raymond Stone.

This beautiful native limestone structure located in NW Douglas was for nearly seventy years known as Glenn No. 33. This school is located on the north side of the road, about two and one-half miles west of Lecompton on 2100 RD/DG CO. 1023, Lecompton Township. The site was deeded to District 33 from Wilburn and Louisa Shirley on August 23, 1862.

This limestone building replaced the original structure in 1879. The original building was a small frame structure built of native walnut. The seats and desks were also of hand hewn walnut slabs. Heat was provided from a wood fired stove. The first teacher was Robert Montgomery.

From "Rural Schools and Schoolhouses of Douglas County, Kansas" by Goldie Piper Daniels, George Nelson, a former circus clown age 40 was one of the first students. He had settled in the area and had dreamed of learning to read and write. He attended one term At Glenn to accomplish this goal.

The building pictured was constructed by Chris Christenson, a Swedish stonemason. The original wood frame building was sold to Adolph Sulzen and was dismantled and removed from the site.

One of the first summer terms was taught by Rose Heise (Hill). This school was always very well equipped and was able to pay the teachers an above average salary, due to the taxes paid by the nearby railroad.

This one acre site soon proved to be too small by the student baseball players. A.G. and Elizabeth Glenn deeded one and one quarter acres of land on the west and north side of the original property to allow for a more adequate size ball field. It wasn't long before the ball players had outgrown this space and Cyrus and Josephine Glenn deeded another 1.85 acres extending the north and west property lines to include a little over four acres. This land was deeded in 1922.

Glenn School saw many changes through the years. A front enclosed entry was added, a basement was excavated in 1916 to facilitate the addition of a coal fired furnace and to store coal. A cistern was added about the same time.

Early records are difficult to find so this information has been gathered from the records of the county superintendent's for the 1897-98 term. There were 52 pupils for this term. The 1898-99 was taught by Rose Burnette. Katie Clark taught the next term, followed Edna Pryor, Hetty Chesnay, Eva Bates, Jessie Glenn, Viva McKenzie, Tillie Renner and F.C. Migliario.

Teachers of the 1900's were; Jessie Glenn, Clide Butler, Paul Swayze, Mildred Bowel and Natalie Brown.

The 1920's were taught by: Jesse Glenn, Dora Black, Bertha Glenn, Edna Cole, Hazel Scheere and Rose Wymer. The term of 1929-30 had an enrollment of 28 students.

Teachers of the next decade were: Rose Wymer, Kathryn, Harold summers and Rosemary Schier.

The school was closed for the terms of 1940-41, 1942-43 and 1943-44. Students were sent to Lecompton. Glenn School was re-opened for the term of 1944-45 with Jessie Winter teaching, followed by Lucy Bieber and Jessie Winter teaching the 1947-48 term. The school consolidated into Lecompton in 1948 and the district disorganized.

Eventually the building was given to a group to be used as the Methodist Church. This group did not utilize the building and it sat vacant for several years. Glenn School was finally sold and converted to a private residence.