A brief look at the early development

In the early 1800’s people began moving into the area that we now call Cass County. It was once known as: Paschal Co. 1824-36; Red River Co. 1836-46; Cass Co. 1846-61; Davis Co. 1861 -71; Cass Co. 1871 - to the present.

The population gradually increased :

1850-5000; 1860-8500; 1870-8900; 1880-17,000 ; 1890-23,000; 1900-23,000

1910-28,000; 1920-30,000; 1930-30,000; 1940-34,000 in 1990-32,000.

As population grew so grew the need for education in this new and forested land. The state constitution in 1845 provided for free public education for all the state but the free system did not develop in Cass County until the early 1870’s. In 1846 the county commissioners appointed a board to

In 1846 the county commissioners appointed a board to locate common school lands. By 1849 the board had located 4 leagues of school land. The county was divided into five areas which were the justice districts.

The earliest schools did not have trustees so the local citizens of a community would take over, and subscription schools were built in the community.—1851 a school was being taught in Douglassville, another in old Hammond (near present Antioch).

In 1851 Sardis had a school house, store, and mill.

In 1853 the legislature issued a charter for the Linden male and female academy. Trustees were William Oliver, Thomas J. Foster, John Ligon, Ebenezer Frazier, T. J. White, Anderson Word, H. J Storey

In 1854 Miss Hammond taught school in Linden and in 1856 Hiss Sarah Ball came from Canada to teach in Douglassville a log house was the school... With time subscription schools developed over the county.

The development usually followed this pattern: local citizens would canvas people in an area to find how many would be interested in having a school charging $1.50 per month per pupil. With sufficient support a teacher and a building would be found, and school would begin.

The community plan thus was established, and many schools were founded over the county as population growth dictated. The schools were named for people, places, or prominent features as is indicated by the list of schools that were created in the county. The names are interesting in themselves.

In 1867 the commissioners court appointed a board of school examiners to examine the credentials of all applicants desiring to be teachers in the county. A fee of $3 was charged. Members were Geo. T Vaughan; Geo. H. Patman; Hardy F. O’Neal; J. C. G. P. Pattens; F. M. Henry.

By 1869 the state legislature became concerned over the slow development of free schools and enacted laws to accelerate the process.

In 1873 the process had evolved for election of trustees to represent the 5 school districts with the county judge acting as county superintendent and along with the trustees conducting the school business. (The first trustee for district 1 was Daniel Boon) this arrangement existed until 1907.

In 1873 the ad valorem tax commenced to finance the school system and in 1874 there were 3749 school children in the county.

Bids were taken in 1872 for the construction of 7 schools financed from district school funds.

In 1903 the five districts were divided into 13 districts. In 1908 district 3 was divided and district 14 bear creek was created. In 1909 Springdale was formed as was Wiggins out of 12. I have not been able to define the original 5 districts or the 13 but this process of division was continued until at one time there were 63 common and 6 independent districts. The process evolved until in 1938 there were 55 common districts and 7 independent districts. Some of the 63 were dropped as the need changed through the years. In Linden there is a book of maps that lays out the location of the 63 districts. The book is not dated but was old as it was prepared by Mr. Harper of the Cass county land and abstract company. These maps are on linen and are still very serviceable.

In 1911 the state created the county board of education which with the county school

superintendent was empowered to manage the business of the schools. Commis sioners court was authorized and appointed Mr. M. G. Bates as the first county superintendent of public education.

In 1912 Drew Porter was elected by the people to be county school superintendent. He resigned in 1914 and the court appointed Mr. Hicks Harvey who served in that post until 1919. From 1919-1923 J. B. McClung; 1923-1927 J. I. Lovelace; 1927-1931 W. A. Barber; 1931-1935 Maybern Humphrey; 1935-1939 D. H. Boon.

Mr. Lovelace introduced the country wide uniform testing program to level out the education process and was instrumental in developing the traveling library to make books more available to the schools.

His successor Mrs. Otha King Miles with an MA from the Univ of Texas continued to stress his efforts and introduced the idea of consolidating the schools to improve education. She spent much time supervising the giving and grading of the state standardized tests.

1930 the circulating library was started with 400 volumes by assessing each member school $5 per teacher. By 1936 the library contained 7500 volumes and was visiting each school every two weeks. Each teacher was allowed 15 books per visit. Under the WPA some larger schools were allowed to hire a librarian to facilitate the library process.

Following WWII, the consolidation process began to accelerate and eventually reached the current arrangement. It is understandable that the increase in available transportation had a lot to do with school consolidation.

The large number of small schools fit the availability of transportation which was primarily foot traffic for many years. When I attended Good Exchange school, I was lucky to live only about a mile away. Some students lived a lot further away than that and there were no parents driving to pick you up if the weather turned lousy. When the way was muddy you squished the mud between your toes for in those days’ shoes were also a premium for a lot of the students.

For some students bent on getting as much learning as possible there were opportunities such as this notice from 1889 linden school. Tuition-primary $2.00;--intermediate $3.00;--advanced -$4.00;—board and room with the best families $10.00 to $12.00.

I remember my mother talking about boarding in Vivian, LA while going to high school around 1920. As a result, she was able to obtain a good high school education.

The people of Cass County realized at an early date the need for education and through their efforts the system was developed and has evolved to the system that exists today.

This is a brief review of some to the major happenings in the development of our school system. There is more information available focusing on the details of the various segments of the system that will satisfy the efforts many researchers. Further development of the history of Cass County Schools is needed.

This information assembled and presented by: John W. Livingston