This is an abandoned country school in Albion Township, Dickey County, about eight miles northwest of Ellendale.
There was a short stretch of gravel road that was pretty rough on the way to this place, but we got rewarded with the sound of pure prairie once we arrived — We arrived shortly before sunset and we were greeted by crickets and wind through the grass.
We visited this school on the spur of the moment after we discovered a church we intended to visit nearby turned out not to be what we expected. As a result, we didn’t do any advance research about this place and we know very little about it. If you know anything about this country school, please leave a comment below.
This school isn’t far from several other places we’ve photographed, like Merricourt, Venturia, Monango, and Forbes.
By modern standards, the facilities were less than ideal in this small school. By prairie school standards, these would have been luxury accommodations — meaning, not an outhouse!
Photos by Troy Larson and Terry Hinnenkamp, copyright © 2016 Sonic Tremor Media
You’re right about the luxury accommodations. I went to New Home #4 – 1955 through 1950 and we had an outhouse.
Great photos, but sad to see the ghosts of a past lifetime. New Home #4 had at most 16 students (as far as we know). My dad and his brothers went there too, for all 8 years. When they were attending, there was a horse barn – as many rode to school.
Thanks for the memories
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I have a typo in the previous post. Said: 1955 through 1950. Should have said: 1955 through 1960. My bad.
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Great pictures!! With sadness, I love looking at them. It brings back such good growing up memories. I grew up in Danzig. There still is a neat brick building,, I hope still standing- that was the bank back in the 1920’s-30′. Thank you for doing this and sharing.
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My mom taught in Albion #3. I doubt if this is her school because I think it’s gone now and it didn’t have the “luxury accommodations”, but it would be really nice if it were. I will have to look up her old pictures to make sure.
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Makes me sad. Thanks for sharing.
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My Dad attended Albion #3 back in the early 1930’s. He wrote a lovely piece about it called “The Scent of Schools”. He wasn’t sure that this was #3 because he remembered a row of windows on one side (maybe north or west). Your photos are lovely, though.
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