Near Sites of Kokomo School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Somewhere out here in Eastland County, close to where a whole community once bustled and breathed, stands a marker for the Kokomo School. And friend, that school had a start as humble as humble gets.

The year was 1886, and somebody went and put up the very first building in this once-thriving community. Not a church, not a general store. A one-room log schoolhouse.

That was it. That was the beginning. And if you're picturing something spare and unforgiving, you've got the right picture, because the furnishings amounted to exactly two things: a stove and split-log benches.

Not chairs. Benches. Logs, split down the middle, and there you sat.

The stove kept the cold from killing you, and the benches kept you off the dirt floor. Everything else, you brought yourself. Now, time has a way of softening hard edges, and by 1899 the folks of Kokomo had seen enough seasons to decide they deserved better.

Better equipment was acquired, and a larger frame building went up in its place, thirty feet wide and sixty feet long. That's a real building. That's a community saying, we're here, we mean it, we're staying.

Then 1907 rolls around and they enlarged the whole thing to two rooms. Two rooms. Progress, measured in walls.

The school carried on, serving that community through the years, until 1949, when it was consolidated with the Carbon School. One door closing, another one opening, and a little piece of Eastland County quietly folding itself into history.

What the marker says

First building erected in this once-thriving community was a one-room log schoolhouse, 1886. Only furnishings were a stove and split-log benches. In 1899 better equipment was acquired and a larger (30' x 60') frame building was erected. In 1907 it was enlarged to two rooms. This school was consolidated with the Carbon School in 1949. (1969)