Looking Back: Oil & Water Mix in Copan

Oil & Water Mix in Copan

Lakes & Oil a Boon to District by Kay Little, Little History Adventures

When the Delaware moved to this area in the mid-1800s, many of them settled in Copan. The community was first called Lawton, then Weldon, and finally changed to Copan in 1904.

In 1899, the first subscription school in Copan was established where the city hall and park are now. It was a one-room school and was for the in-town students. The teacher, Nell Truskett, from Caney, drove her horse-drawn buggy to school every day. The building was also used for church whenever a circuit rider preacher came through town. Most families lived in the surrounding country, and the children attended one of the many one-room schools close to them.

The first school in the area was a sod house on Pooler Creek, north of Copan. On Sundays, the building was used as a Baptist Church.

In 1896, Mrs. Dell Martin held school in her home north of Copan. She taught her children and a few other area children. In 1899, they went to the St. Louis School.

A small one-room school, Cotton Valley, was built in the 1880s, east of Copan. In 1954, the students went to the newly-abandoned Pleasant View School. In the 1960s, a new school was built for Cotton Valley, ¼ mile east of the former school. Eventually, it consolidated with the Copan Schools and the “new” building was transformed into a home.

Pleasant View was established June 1909 in District #2, but by October, the community petitioned to be separate from District #2 and became District #20. They built a nice two-room brick building, the first of its kind in the county. The school met for 44 years before annexing into Copan in 1953.

Before statehood, the Antioch School was held in the home of A.C. Kneisly. After statehood, residents built a one-room school east of Copan. As the community grew, an additional room was added and a 3-room home was built for the teacher. In 1941, they built more additions, but the last class met in 1956, because of annexation to Copan. The building burned in 1966 and all that is left is a marker.

Owen School was established in 1907, two miles south of the Kansas border and five miles north of Copan, on old Highway 75. The school met there for 45 years, annexing to Copan in 1952.

Pleasant Grove was built on Falleaf Land, just south of Cotton Creek, in 1911. In 1916, it became Blackbird School. Classes were suspended in 1947, and the students assimilated to the Cotton Valley School. In 1952, the entire area annexed to the Copan School District. This building eventually became the Pleasant Grove Church and is still standing. It sits empty now, just waiting to be used.

The St. Louis School was an early subscription school established in 1894, three miles northwest of Copan, and was

constructed of logs, had two windows, a dirt floor, and handhewn log seats. Within a year, students were meeting in a small frame building built in the same area, about a mile south of the first location. They met there for several years, then moved to Rockford, a new school built in 1909. It was also called Wilson School, because the land surrounding the site belonged to a Delaware Indian named Wilson. They annexed to Copan in 1919.

Another area school was the Caney Forks, also called Young’s, which is discussed in Debbie’s Neece’s Feature story about oneroom schools, starting on page 16 of this issue.

The discovery of oil in this area meant there was a need for a place to store the oil. Tank farms built in Ramona and Copan were the largest in the state. This made Copan very prosperous, which helped the schools. The people in the community were not thrilled with the tank farms until they realized it would mean money in taxes for the schools and towns.

The oilmen who came to Copan usually came from the east, brought their families, and expected the schools to be on par with schools back home. They helped build the first modern school in 1910, on land donated by J.C. Sheets, a local prosperous oilman. All of this growth caused Copan to be one of the best schools in the state.

With the growth from the tank farms, Copan was incorporated in 1906. With growth came churches and schools. The Methodist Church was the first church in town, and the school met in the church while a new school was being built. The school board gave the church desks and chairs for the students to use while meeting there. In the 1970s, some classes met in the Methodist Church during a growth spurt of the school. When the Baptist Church experienced a fire in 1962, the church met in the school until they were able to rebuild. At one time, teachers were required to attend one of the churches in town and the board tried to hire equal numbers of Baptist and Methodist.

The large growth caused the district to need transportation for all the area children to attend school. In 1910, Fletcher Pomeroy built a horse drawn school bus for Copan, the first in the state of Oklahoma. He eventually built seven. This caused even more growth. Several years later, he built several motorized buses for the school.

Because of this growth, The Sheets family donated more land in 1919, so the school could have a separate elementary and high school. Four cottages were built for the faculty. They named them after the wives of school board members. Eventually, the family donated more land for an athletic field and the vocational agriculture building. The football field is named Sheets Field. By 1963, the family had donated 35.70 acres. The only stipulation was that the land be used exclusively for school activities.

The Copan School became a consolidated and incorporated district in 1914. By 1953, all the surrounding rural schools were annexed into Copan. The school experienced much more growth again in the 1970-80s because of the building of Copan and Hulah lakes and dams. I was blessed to be able to teach in Copan Elementary during some of this growth.