One-Room, Country, & Historic Schools of Montgomery County

Caney, Kansas School

The old Caney School is located at the Caney Valley Historical Society Museum Complex, 310 W. 4th Ave, in Caney, Kansas.

Central School

The original school building appears to have been in the Prairie style with an Italian Renaissance bell tower. Modern one-story brick appendage on front. It is located at 2491 58th Road, also known as 3875 Road. The school is about 1400 feet east of the intersection with 3500 Road.

Dearing Auditorium

This Dearing School Auditorium & Gymnasium is believed to have been a Works Progress Administration project. Initial instruction began in October 1935 with a cost of $27,038. The one-and-a-half-story stone building is at 106 W Oak Street in Dearing, Kansas.

District #37

This red brick school building is located north of CR 4600 in Drum Creek Township, near Independence.

District #60 School

This one-story, six-sided stone building was built in the commercial style with a hip roof. It is located at 5550 Road in the Liberty vicinity and serves as a mausoleum today.

Fairview School

This brick gable-roof building is located at 3846 3100 Road, about 5.5 miles southwest of Independence, Kansas. The building serves as a residence today.

Field Kindley Memorial High School.

This three-story red brick and native stone high school in Coffeyville, Kansas, has a flat roof with a parapet. Built in 1929, the school is still in use today. It is located at 1110 W 8th Street.

Gamble School.

The old Gamble School is a simple, one-story, rectangular building with a south gable-roofed entry portico and a squat, pyramidal bell tower. Today, the building serves as a church. It is located in Sycamore Township at 2991 5400 Road in the Independence vicinity.

Garfield Elementary School, 2004.

Bible Baptist Church in Coffeyville.

Located at 701 W 4th Street, the two-and-a-half-story brick and concrete structure was built in 1953. A gym and the south wing were added in 1955. Garfield Elementary School in Coffeyville, Kansas, was closed after the 2003-4 school year. Afterward, the building was converted into the Bible Baptist Church.

Independence Junior High

Located at 300 W. Locust Street, the Independence Junior High School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 2009. Like other Progressive-Era school buildings, it occupies a full city block. Located near the center of town, its large auditorium was designed to accommodate public gatherings and school-related functions. The three-story Collegiate Gothic building was constructed in 1923 as a Public Works Administration project. A gymnasium was added in 1939. It continues to serve as a school today. 

Jefferson School

This school was built in 1900 for $2,500 after the previous school burned in 1897. The building has been converted into a home today. Jefferson is a tiny, unincorporated town. It is located on County Road 3300.

Old LeHunt School

This one-story rectangular stone school was built in the Late 19th & 20th Century Classical Revival style with a hip roof. Serving as a residence today, it is located at 4011 N. Rosser Road in the extinct town of Le Hunt, Kansas.

Little White School

This building is part of the original T-shaped school and is also used as a gathering place for community events. The bell was rung for significant events in town and was an early-day way of communicating with citizens. The Howard family, who lived in the building, was an early settler of Caney and preserved the building until the Historical Society could acquire it.

This school was built in 1871 and was located at the corner of 4th and Main streets. The land was donated for the school site on the condition that it always be used for school purposes. It was the only wood-frame building painted white, then called the “Little White Schoolhouse.” In 1885, the school had a fire but was reconstructed in the shape of a T to accommodate more students.

The original schoolhouse was removed from the corner of 4th and Main in 1915 to make way for a new high school. The T-shaped structure was taken apart, and one section was moved to 8th and Foreman to become a residence. The other portion was moved to a location on East First Street, and a stone structure was built around the building, where it remains today. The home, located at 8th and Foreman, was donated and moved to its current location in 1993. It is the east wing of the T-shaped building, which currently houses many school-related artifacts. The west addition to the building was built in 1993 to replicate a one-room schoolhouse like it would have been in 1871. It is located at 321 West 4th Avenue in Caney, Kansas.

Longfellow School in Coffeyville, Kansas,

Longfellow Grade School was built in 1955 to replace the former Longfellow School, which had been on the same property. The new school opened for classes after the winter break, with a few things still to be completed. Longfellow was built during the same period as Egewood, Garfield, and Whittier. All were elementary schools in Coffeyville. By the early 2000s, it was found that having four elementary schools was unnecessary and costly, and all four schools were closed after the 2003-2004 school year. The maintenance costs per building, which were over $ 1 million a year, were the driver for closing the schools.

After being abandoned for nearly 20 years, renovation began at the old Longfellow School, located at 14th and Elm in Coffeyville. Restoring the property to usable condition was an endeavor initiated by a newly formed local non-profit entity, Friend and Kin Properties Inc., to rent space to non-profit organizations that serve the neighborhood through social services. Clean-up began in March 2023.

Maple Grove School.

Maple Grove School is located at 3875 Road, on the southwest edge of Independence in Montgomery County, Kansas.

Old Morgantown School

The old Morgantown School in Drum Creek Township is a rectangular, one-story brick structure built in the Eclectic or Neoclassical style. It serves as a residence today. It is located at 4648 4300 Road in the Independence vicinity.

Old One Hundred School

This one-story wood-frame building with a gable roof was built in the Vernacular style and is in its original location. The deteriorating rectangular building has an outhouse northeast of the school, a swing set, and a teeter-totter east of the school. It is located at 5406 County Road 1950 at the “T” intersection, 1.7 miles east and northeast of Elk City.

Overfield School

The old Overfield School in Drum Creek Township is a one-story brick building with a gable-front roof designed in the Italianate-Vernacular style. It is located at 4703 County Road 4200 in the Independence vicinity.

Peebler School

The old Peebler Elementary School is a one-story rectangular brick school designed in the commercial style with a hip roof. It serves as a residence today. It is located at 2836 Peter Pan Road (County Road 3525), one-half mile south of the extinct town of Lehunt in the Independence vicinity.

School #46

This T-shaped two-story red brick school, with a flat roof and parapet, was designed in the late 19th and 20th century Classical Revival style. It is located at 5680 US-75 Highway in Sycamore, Kansas, and is vacant today.

Sunnyside School

The historic Sunny Side one-room school operated between 1871 and 1948. Before it was moved to the Little House on the Prairie Museum grounds in 1976, it was 4.5 miles away. As was typical of that era, teachers in this school taught from first to eighth grade. A school bell stands in the yard, ready to ring and call the children to class. The one-story wood-frame school is at 2507 County Road 3000 near Independence, Kansas.

Old Washington Elementary

Built in 1939 by the Public Works Administration, Washington School officially opened on January 3, 1940. It served the community of Independence as a public grade school until 2010. The two-story concrete building was designed in the Streamlined/Art Moderne style with a flat roof. The interior is intact, with some original doors, plaster walls and ceilings, terrazzo corridors, glazed block wainscoting, the original gym featuring a stage, and suspended ceilings in the classrooms. The school faces West. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in April 2015 as part of the Historic Public Schools of Kansas and New Deal-Era Resources of Kansas nomination. A $5.7 million rehabilitation project successfully used federal and Kansas Historic Tax Credits, as well as Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, to convert the school into apartments. It is located at 300 E. Myrtle Street in Independence, Kansas.

West Grade School

This two-story rectangular brick building was designed in the commercial style with a flat roof and parapet. Its original configuration is intact with plaster walls, ceilings, concrete floors, and a gym. Vacant today, it stands at 600 W. Main Street in Cherryvale, Kansas.