COTTONWOOD-AFTON-PATTON SPRINGS SCHOOL
By Pauline Day Bateman and Hortense Yeates GoodwinIn the year 1900 a little one-room school house was erected about one-half mile southwest of our present-day school (Patton Springs). This school house was on the Alford farm just east of the cemetery. Mrs. J.F. Alford gave the land for the school and the cemetery. This was a six months school and was paid out of the school funds. It was called Cottonwood. The post office and grocery store were also known as Cottonwood as they were located on Cottonwood Creek.
Miss Myra Kelly (Mrs. Duff Green) was the first teacher. In 1902 another room and teacher by the name of Charlie Browder. were added, and the little school, post office,and grocery store changed names. The people of the community were asked to send in names for the post office, as there was already one by the name of Cottonwood in Texas. Of all the names sent in, the name of Afton was accepted.
Trustees in 1900 were B.F. YEATES, J. M. JONES, WILL AUSTIN, and W. R. STAFFORD, Some of the students were GUSSIE STAFFORD, LILLIE HEXT, MRS. HERMAN MARSHALL, MRS. CHARLIE BROOKS, SYDNEY SMITH and MRS. JOHN SMITH.
The last Afton school building was a grand two-story structure with four large rooms, an auditorium upstairs, with a large stage, dressing rooms, and a fire escape on the west. Halls ran between all the rooms downstairs. A front door was on the north, a back door on the south. Under the stairs near the back door a library was located.
The building had no indoor plumbing, but large outhouses were built, the girls' in the extreme southwest corner of the school yard and the boys' in the southeast corner. A coal house was located back of the main building, furnishing fuel for the large coal stoves in the corners of each room. The janitor work was done by the teachers and pupils. A windmill was on the east side of the building furnishing water. A row of water fountains was located south of the building just under the windows of the fourth and fifth grade room. Before that, a cistern furnished water.
Before consolidation in 1934, there were small country schools every few miles and many little farms with numbers of school children living there.
Midway school had already absorbed the smaller schools of Liberty and Amity. Croton had consolidated with Highland. Names of the schools that eventually consolidated were: Highland, Croton, Wichita, Cottonwood, Amity, Liberty, New Hope, Afton, Gravel Hill, Prairie Chapel, Duncan Flat, Midway and Chandler.
History reveals that the name Patton Springs sprang from the fact that an early day buffalo hunter by the name of Patton camped at the spring northeast of the present school site to hunt and kill buffalo and direct hauling of the hides to Fort Griffin by teams of oxen.
The first school year at Patton Springs, 1934-1935, registered 419 pupils, 15 teachers, a government employed librarian, (Mrs. Ira Allison), a custodian (Mr. Lon Winfield), and seven buses and drivers. On March 9, 1935 the building was formally accepted from the contractors, and on March 15, 1935 classes were conducted for the first time in the new building. Students under Mr. Giesecke's supervision walked and carried books from the Afton school across the road to the new school.
Names of the first board members were: President, V S. Ford; Secretary, Joe Rose, and members: S.G. Scoggins, C.T. Burns, D.W. Sims and S.G. Porter.