More Photos of the Class of 1947 Students at Cooksville’s School

Here are more photos of Cooksville School students from 1947.Thanks to Cooksville School teacher Edith Cavey Johnson for sending these additional photos of her pupils to the Cooksville Archives collection. Also thanks to Marjorie Kloften Hipke, one of her students in the 1947 photograph, presently a resident in Evansville, who has helped to identify her classmates. (A previous Blog story here shared those earlier other  photos of the 1947 classmates.)

But you will notice that two of these student  portraits do not have last names written on them: Dale and Dennis in the bottom row. If anyone knows their identity, please share their names.

The Town of Porter once had nine rural one-room schools in operation, including Cooksville. These schoolhouses were scattered around the township on land usually donated by the farmer-owner. Four schools were in the north of the township, two in the center, three in the south— all serving the growing population for over a hundred years.

Cooksville Schoolhouse, photo c.1920-30

The nine schools included Cooksville, Eagle, Forest Academy, Lineau, Miller, Stebbinsville, Stevens, White Star, and Wilder schools.  Of these, seven remain standing; the Stebbinsville School burned down in 1942 and White Star School has been demolished. Most have been converted to residences; one is now the Porter Town Hall and one now serves as the Cooksville Community Center.

Lineau School, photo c. 1952

The earliest school in the historic Village of Cooksville was a brick building on the Public Square built about 1850. But because of structural problems and its small size, it was replaced in 1886 with the present wooden frame building, with bell tower and two entry doors, one for boys and one for girls, a very traditional New England-Puritanical design.

However, in 1961, all the one-room rural schools ceased their educational existence because the school districts were consolidated into a few large districts that would also contain higher-level “high” schools. The Town of Porter students then went to schools in the cities of Stoughton, Edgerton or Evansville, ending the 100-year history of Porter’s rural, one-room schools. 

The historic Cooksville Schoolhouse facing the village’s historic Public Square is now the home of the Cooksville Community Center established in 1962— with some learning and a lot of socializing  still going on in the old village schoolhouse.

Cooksville School Class of 1924-25

  

Above is a photograph of an earlier Cooksville School student body. These are the students of 1924-25, with their teacher Lloyd Porter (1882-1967), a grandson of one of the village’s original 1846 settlers, Joseph K. P. Porter. Also included with the photo is a list of the names of those pictured. (Many thanks to whoever took the time to write down the identities of the teacher and the classmates in the photo.)

A number of the photographs in the Cooksville Archives, are unfortunately not identified with names or dates or locations written on the back or somehow attached. But any and all such Cooksville photographs, etc., are always welcomed additions to the Archives.

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