Education at Poteau Switch

The first school in the area that would eventually become Poteau Switch was located where the St. Louis and San Francisco train depot now stands.  Built sometime in the late 1870’s, this small schoolhouse only served a few families, both white and Choctaw.  It was a one-room, wood frame structure with dirt floors.

Another school was established in 1887 near where Oakland Cemetery is now located.  One of the teachers in this school was Belle Kidd Taylor.  The cost of this building was paid for by public donations.  These schools were also known as subscription schools, where the teachers were paid by the students that attended.   

According to “A Place Called Poteau”, there was a third school erected on the corner of Hill and College.  This was a two-story building.  However, no further information about this school has been found.

Beyond these schools, there were several smaller “Indian” schools in the area.

Skullyville School 1890

In the early 1880’s, the schoolhouse served as the focus of most people’s lives outside of home and work.  Besides being used for the daily routine of educating children, it also served as a place for the community to hold church services, parties, community parties, dances, and other events.

For the most part, school attendance was voluntary, and varied from day to day depending on the weather or the need for labor at home.  By the 1890's, children were required to attend at least three months out of the year.

Teaching was a full-time job.  As mentioned in the previous chapter, Jim Evans was the first schoolmaster and charged the students one dollar a month to attend.  An interview of Montie Page from the early 1920’s describes the schoolroom as being sparsely furnished, and as there were no chairs, students were required to sit on the windowsills during class. 

During the summer, the windows were left open in order to cool the room.  During winter, the schoolhouse was heated by a pot-bellied stove, which did little to increase the temperature to a comfortable level.  The heat would escape through small cracks in the walls and windows, making the schoolhouse unbearable at times.

As the population grew, it became apparent that this small structure wouldn’t suffice.  By 1899, a new building had been constructed along Railroad Avenue in the southwest.  Presently, this would be located between Beard Avenue and Husley Avenue, right off of Broadway Street.  

During the 1890’s, perceptions about education in the United States had taken a dramatic turn.  The government had instituted several new laws governing education.  Schools were required to offer better facilities and meet specific guidelines laid out by the new laws.

This new building off Railroad Avenue was built with education in mind.  The new, two-story structure measured 47 feet long by 23 feet wide and offered almost 1,140 square feet of space.   The wood frame construction of the building ensured that the interior would be comfortable enough for both the students and the teacher.  

Reading, good penmanship, and arithmetic were stressed more than the other subjects were.  With the scarcity of books and paper, memorization and oral drilling were the primary ways that students learned.  Occasionally, slate boards were used to practice writing and arithmetic.  

While learning was taking place, good behavior and strict discipline were enforced.  Students that didn't show the proper respect due to the schoolmaster were quickly introduced to the "ferula".  The ferula was a rod or ruler 15 to 18 inches long used to strike the palms or buttocks.  Other disciplinary measures included whipping, standing on the floor on one foot, and staying in during recess.  

It can be assumed that a typical school day at Poteau Switch resembled that of any other small-town school across the country.  Plumbing hadn’t arrived yet, so water had to be brought in every day before the students arrived, restroom breaks had to be taken at the outhouse, and kerosene lamps provided light on dark and dreary days.

Despite the hardships of formal education during the early days of Poteau, the students were well educated and brought up to become hard-working, dedicated members of society.

Just outside of Poteau Switch, there was also a school at Tarby Prairie during the late 1800's/early 1900's.  

The Tarby Prairie School was a one-room log cabin.  This was a subscription school, parents paying one dollar and a half a month for each scholar.  It had a dirt floor and a clapboard roof.  The students would sit on log benches and work at box desks.  For light, two small half-windows were located on opposite sides of the building.  A large fireplace was located on the other side by a door.  The room measured sixteen feet square, and accommodated up to forty people.   

While the school was still in operation, both Jim Bagwell and Walter Beard served as schoolteachers at different times.

Some of the Indian children who went to school there were the James, Willis, and Harris children.

Around 1905, a permanent schoolhouse was constructed at Tarby Prairie.

Maud E. McDaniels describes a little of the early schoolhouse:

The article of furniture which served as a desk was a small table at which all the pupils who were far enough advanced received instruction in penmanship.  That table was too small to accommodate more than two people at one time, so each pupil in penmanship awaited his or her time for the use of the table.

This lack of necessary equipment caused much confusion for the reason that class recitals, in which a penmanship pupil was to take a part, were never complete.

The benches were uncomfortable in the extreme.  They were made of split logs, the heart, or inner side smoothed, after a manner, for the for the surface of the bench, while the outer, or bark, side were inserted wooden pegs which served as legs for the bench.  There were no backs to these benches.

Slates and slate pencils were used instead of tablets and lead pencils.  In the absence of desks, those slates enabled the pupil to have a hard and firm surface on which to prepare a report of his lesson, something which could not be done with a loose leaf of paper so the primitive school slate not only provided a reasonably good desk, when placed upon the knees of the pupil, but had the added advantage of being ready for further use upon the erasure of completed work. Erasures were most easily made. The pupils usually were provided with a small sponge or cloth attached to the slate by means of a cord as an eraser but the rougher boys scorned this and when they desired to make an erasure would spit on the surface of the slat and with vigorous rubbing with the bare hand quickly remove all traces of previous work.  The shirt and coat sleeves were also often called into use for this purpose.

Exceptionally cold days were hailed with great delight by the pupils as they afforded them excuses to leave their hard and uncomfortable seats and approach the fireplace to warm their almost frozen hands and feet.  Nor more than half a dozen of them were permitted to leave their seats at the same time for that purpose.  The discomfort experienced in an attempt to keep warm in a not too well built log cabin where the heat finds its way out through the openings at the eaves and the spaces between the warping clapboards, while cold air is constantly drawn in through badly chinked openings between the logs, can only be appreciated by those who have suffered it.  Only children who were endowed with vigorous constitutions survived it.  Both white and Indian children attended this school and both races mingled in the recreations of the school play yard.

Prior to statehood, there were two types of early schools in LeFlore County:  The Indian schools, and the white "pay or subscription" schools.  During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, it was easy task for a white child to receive a good education in LeFlore County.  Primarily, the reason being is that education was not a top priority to many pioneers on coming to Indian Territory.  Many of the parents had a meager education and the need of it, they thought, in a virgin country was not as important as it was to be able to clear and break the new ground that was being put into cultivation.  Young men were needed to do much of the farm work, along with cotton picking and corn gathering.  
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In many cases, white children were allowed to go to the Indian school by paying a small fee.  The fees for schooling were typically $1.00 per month.  This was often paid in meat, butter, and eggs, or by the parent in labor.  No rural school could be organized on a legal basis before statehood.  There were also no federal regulations on what the teacher could teach or what the teacher could be paid.  Sometimes rules and regulations were set by members of the community, but most typically, someone would simply take over and begin a school.