Stumptown was one of those towns that died after the railroad failed to pull through town. William Brigham wrote a brief history of Stumptown in his book, The Story of McLean County and its Schools. Rather than reproduce that history I will snap a picture of it from Hathitrust:
In 1938 Stumptown still had a country school, which still stands today and is a private residence, a fact I learned on a recent Agricultural bus tour of McLean County with Don Meyers and Bill Kemp. If you have the opportunity to ride on one of their bus tours, don't pass up the chance! Hazel Phillips and Vivian Satterfield walked three miles to school each day. (right)
Eva Hule was the teacher at Stumptown and here she is supervising Kenneth Holderly's geography lesson:
Miss Hule taught the grades combined as fifth-sixth and seventh-eighth, and so on. She kept all her 35 students busy through out the day with individual projects. The children had to learn to work independently and without being distracted by the recitations of the students around them. The photo story told in October of 1938 was comparing teaching and learning at a country school versus the city schools.
The first school at Stumptown was built in 1852. The school was moved to the center of the district in 1878 and in 1885 the building was replaced with a new one that was later remodeled to meet the requirements of standardization. The third graders were performing their reading lessons while sitting on vegetable crates! Students: Shirley Hafley, Rosella Burton, Cleo Phillips, and Roy Satterfeal.
The seventh-eighth grade language class was correcting sentences on the chalkboard. Students: Eileen Hafley, Merle Hendren, and Keith Zimmerman.
First graders concentrate on their work despite the activity all around!
Each child brought his or her own lunch each day. Lois Miller and Vera Hankins sat their desks to enjoy their lunch on the day the reporter visited.
Sadly this photo of two children playing ball was not used in the photo story, so we don't have their names. Another photo of the school water pump, which is still in the yard, may be digitized in the next batch of negatives.
Helen Holderly pitches underhand to the batter.
Miss Hule gives her attention to Margaret Bane. (left)
Bobby Hankins and Keith Zimmerman rode their bikes to school each day:
