College Hill Commoner_Feb. 2010 by Barry Owens

4 Neighborhood

Association seeks discount deal for local, residential trash service.

6 The Year in Review: 5 Downtown has had The Commoner looks back at the highs and lows of life in 2009 in the old neighborhood.

a grocery store for decades, residents just haven’t seemed to have noticed.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER Vol. 3 No. 2

COLLEGE HILL

• CROWN HEIGHTS • UPTOWN • SLEEPY HOLLOW

JANUARY 2010

OLD SCHOOL A look back at College Hill’s first primary school, a one room shack on Cook’s Hill. Plus, a rare peek at early College Hill Elementary. PAGE 10

Pretty as a postcard, the second of three College Hill Elementary School buildings was built in 1912. The first, designed by Proudfoot and Bird, was built in 1889. A photo of that building, equally grand, can be found on page 10. The look of the current school building, built in 1977, is nothing to write home about.

VINTAGE POSTCARD COURTESY OF TOM D. HANKINS

LETTERS

THE PROBLEM WITH NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

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TO THE EDITOR: As we enter a new year, what do we bring with us from the old? As I reflected on this question, I came up with the following: Old dreams and deeds, Old hopes and fears, Old sadness and sorrows, Old joys and tears. Old habits and thoughts, Old bodies and pains, Old tests and trials, Old losses and gains. In other words, the self we were yesterday is most likely to be the self we are today—except that we are one day older—unless something new, different, startling or damaging happens to us to create a change in our lives. The human self resists change and resists quite tenaciously. This firmness of the human self might help to explain the problem with New Year’s resolutions. Because a resolution implies a plan and a commitment toward a clearly defined goal, a personal resolution is a promise to yourself that you will think, feel and act differently in some way that seems important to you. However, most of us make our resolutions impulsively without careful and deliberate thought. Therefore, they are more likely to be the stuff of dreams, not realities—they are wished and wants without substance— they represent fantasies not actualities. Resolutions can become realities if we are willing to involve ourselves, if we accept major responsibility for all of our choices and all of the consequence that go with them. This means we have to be willing “to pay the price” of emotional unrest which always accompanies change by choice or change by force. But, if our resolutions depend upon others, or depend upon luck, good wishes, good intentions or prayers, we’ll soon find out that all the old ways from last year and the years before will likely reassert themselves. To choose to change our habits or attitudes, in any significant way, requires us to clearly define our goal, increase our knowledge about how to reach it and then be willing to keep at it in spite of obstacles, slippage or discomfort. Therefore, if you have made some New Year’s resolutions, take time to see if you’ve met the above requirements. Then set about the task of working to achieve the change you desire. However, while doing so, be gentle with yourself if the process seems a bit slower or bumpier than you would prefer it to be. Also, please realize that a Happy New Year isn’t something that just happens to us, rather having a happier New Year is the result of something we, ourselves, can do in spite of all the unpleasant events we encounter which are beyond our ability to control. JOHN E. VALUSEK

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

KNOCK, KNOCK A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

h, January, thank you for your bracing cold and slate gray skies. Things were getting a bit too festive around here, what with all the holiday parties and light stringing and such. The feasts are over, the gift wrapping stowed, and certainly by February we should be rid of our hangovers and that Douglas fir tree standing in our living room. Yes, it is good to step out in the old neighborhood on a frozen morning, grim in our determination to get back to work, to get back to normal. Thank you, January, for being such a bore. What we could all use right now is a bit less frivolity. And maybe some aspirin. Curse you, December, for making us behave so lampshade-on-the-head foolishly. We should have been wrapping up this drafty old College Hill house in weather proofing instead of cranking up the furnace, pouring another egg nog, and wrapping up yet another video game system for the kids, almost exactly the same gift that we wrapped up and put under the tree last year but, you know, shinier. The new model. We know, we know ... Christmas is not supposed to be about the gifts and it’s the thought that counts and all that. But try telling that to your little ones on Christmas morning. So we indulged. Thank you, January, you frigid old crow, for rap, rap, rapping at our door and reminding us what fools we all were. “Nevermore.” We’re going to lay low this month, and pile on a few extra blankets instead of purchasing over-the-counter firewood. We’re going to let the credit cards cool off, too. And we’re cutting back to 2-percent milk; that egg nog was a little rich. And we’re going to quit drinking, or maybe take it up in earnest. Whatever it takes to get us through these dark days. Because so long as old man January is on our porch, shaking that mittened fist full of unpaid bills, we’re staying inside. See you in February. BARRY OWENS EDITOR

WRITE THE EDITOR:

We welcome your letters. No subject is out of bounds, so long as it is local. Letters should not exceed 300 words and may be edited for clarity and length.

E-MAIL US: editor@collegehillcommoner.com WRITE US: 337 N. Holyoke, Wichita, KS, 67208 CALL US: 689-8474 ADVERTISE: jessica@collegehillcommoner.com, or 689-8474 THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER VOLUME 3 ISSUE 2 JANUARY 2010

PUBLISHER

J ESSICA F REY O WENS

EDITOR

B ARRY

OWENS

CONTRIBUTORS

J EFF R OTH , J OE S TUMPE

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER

Published monthly by The College Hill Commoner 337 N. Holyoke Wichita, K.S. 67208 316-689-8474 editor@collegehillcommoner.com www.collegehillcommoner.com

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

OP-ED

The Year of Our Self-Improvement

anuary is named for the twofaced Roman god Janus, who looks into the future with one face and into the past with the other. That’s kind of where the rest of us find ourselves, too. On these dark days following the winter solstice, we look at the year ahead and resolve to be better in some small way, even as we look at the year past and realize how unlikely that is. Was it just 12 DAVE KNADLER months ago we were standing in front of this same mirror, vowing to hit the gym five days a week, cut down on the fatty foods and take it easy on the wine? I think it was. Those vows are too easy to make after the excesses of the holiday season. Suddenly your waistband is a little too snug and you’ve got some acid reflux going on and a little headache just behind the eyes and you realize that in a whole year all you’ve gotten is older. It really is time to make a change, you think, and this time the change will extend beyond the first week of February. Which is no doubt why the

Romans invented old Janus, god of them for everybody else. Here, gates and portals, god of transi- then, is my short list of New Year’s tions. In 21st-century America, the resolutions for Crown Heights and transition most sought is the one College Hill: from fat to slender, or from obscuriThis year, I will not exceed the ty to fame, but the speed limit on First or idea is the same: If This year, I will Second Streets, and I you want to be goodnot exceed the will not flip off those looking and get your who do. I will not pass speed limit on own reality show, First or Second on the right, or on the once a year it’s a good sidewalk, and I will poke idea to take a few Streets, and I along in the middle lane, minutes and see how will not flip off serene in the knowledge things are trending. those who do. that wherever I’m headed Thus are born New is unlikely to disappear Year’s resolutions — in the 30 or 40 seconds I the temporary trimight save by rocketing umph of hope over through school crossings like a man experience. I make fewer of them possessed. than I used to, but I still do. They’re mostly mundane: gonna get fit, This year, I will not only pick up gonna get better on the guitar, after my dog, but I will pick up gonna be nicer to everybody. I don’t after other dogs too, perhaps write them down anymore, since pulling a wagon behind to accomit’s better not to leave a paper trail, modate the reeking heaps of dung but I still try to convince myself that will surely accumulate in a sixeach January that this time it will be block stroll. I will figure it’s my different, that I will end the year a way of giving something back. better man than when I started. We’ll see about that, won’t we? This year, I will not crowd bicyAnyway, while I may have misgivclists into the curb in an attempt to ings about my own resolutions, I’ve teach them a lesson about obstructnever been more sure or more coming traffic. I will be patient and give mitted when it comes to making them room, and utter a quiet prayer

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of thanksgiving that a doofus on a bike is one less car to worry about. I will also get on a bicycle at least once myself, and perhaps ride it to Ace Hardware on Douglas, just for the exhilaration of seeing how it feels to cheat death. This year, instead of grudgingly observing the 20-mph speed limit in Eastborough, I will get out of my car and walk through it, being careful not to step on the finely manicured lawns or take photographs of the proud-but-secretive residents. I will studiously refrain from mocking their quaint customs, such as paying water bills that greatly exceed the national average. This year, I will invest my entire annual income on an animatronic holiday display that will teach my neighbors what it means to play in the big leagues, holidaywise. I’m talking both Halloween and Christmas. I mean it. I’m through screwing around with simple smoke machines and flashing lights. Say goodbye to the holiday throngs, Broadview, because they’ll all be over at my place. Writer Dave Knadler lives in Crown Heights.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

CHNA Seeks Deal for Discount Trash Service Discounted trash service, available in Crown Heights, would be a first for College Hill. BY BARRY OWENS Last month the College Hill Neighborhood Association sought a deal with Lies Trash Service to offer discounted service to College Hill residents. If you live within the neighborhood proper—Hillside to Oliver, Kellogg to Central—you could qualify. In a letter to Lies Trash Service from Bill Hess, president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, Hess outlined terms of a servBill Hess ice discount for neighborhood residents similar to that offered to other neighborhoods, such as Crown

FILE PHOTO

Heights and Uptown. “It is another way in which this neighborhood association intends to benefit residents,” Hess told the Commoner. All residents would be eligible and membership with the neighbor-

hood association is not required, Hess said. Hess credits Circle Drive resident Sam Webb with the idea. “It was not something that I was even aware of until he brought it to my attention, but it sounded like a

good idea,” Hess said. Lies Trash Service did not return calls last month seeking comment, but Hess provided the letter to The Commoner. While The Commoner will not quote the rates that were outlined in the letter, as those could not be confirmed with the company, Hess said that residents are welcome to call Lies (522-1699) and ask about the College Hill Neighborhood Association discount. Lies offers both regular trash service and recycling pick-up. Both new and current Lies customers would be eligible for the discount under the neighborhood association plan, Hess said. “Over time, it is a pretty good discount,” he said. The discount would apply only to residential, not commercial, customers. The discounted trash service will be discussed at the March meeting of the neighborhood association, Hess said, which representatives from Lies have been invited to attend. The meeting is set for 7 p.m., March 16, at East Heights United Methodist Church, 4407 E. Douglas Ave.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

Last month, as we thumbed through our archives in search of highlights of the year past [see story, page 6] we happened across a file of articles from our former sister paper, The Downtowner, that unfortunately never made it to print. Among them was this gem by Joe Stumpe about a downtown grocery store. While the store is not in College Hill, it is a story worth sharing.

sk a dozen Downtown residents what the area needs most, and 10 will probably give the same answer: a grocery store. All of which makes Joy Farha smile a little wanly, considering her father has run a grocery there for decades. “I would say once a day someone walks in and says ‘I didn’t know you were here,’” she said. Then again, Ray Sales Co. at 206 S. Emporia isn’t your average grocery store, at least by current standards. From the roll-up awning outside to the colorful mix of goods and customers inside, Ray Sales is both more and less. Step inside and the first thing you notice is a collection of styrofoam take-off containers, with their prices stapled to the opposite wall. On the shelves are a mixture of brand names, off-brands and bulk goods. A sign invites customers to win groceries by guessing the number of peanuts in a barrel. There’s a little fresh produce and frozen meat, and lots of candy. Behind the register is a glasspaned inner office. All that seems to be missing is a bookkeeper with green eyeshades writing in a dusty ledger book (there’s actually a computer back there). Most of the employees are family -- Ray Farha; his wife, “Mrs. Ray”; their daughters, Joy and Denise Johnston; and Denise’s husband, Rusty. Ray Farha, who’s 87, started the business 36 years ago this February. At the time, Farha had a contract with the Sante Fe Railroad, whose offices were nearby, to sell damaged goods. That meant not just food but furniture, appliances and anything else, such as “lots of 50-pound bags of dog food that had to be taped up,” Denise Johnston recalls. Farha also developed a wholesale business. In addition to No. 10 cans and take-out containers, one specialty is the brown paper bags used by liquor stores. Then after the city built its bus transit center across Emporia, Ray Sales evolved again, into a kind of convenience store and neighborhood grocery for the people using it. All day long, bus passengers pop into the store for a cold drink, snack

Ray Sales Co. at 206 S. Emporia is the sort of urban and authentic neighborhood grocery store, or bodega, that you would find in many major cities. It has been there for decades. Downtown residents, so far, haven’t seemed to notice. “I would say once a day someone walks in and says ‘I didn’t know you were here,” says Joy Farha.

PHOTOS: BARRY OWENS

Bus Station

BODEGA Hard against the new arena, close to the transit center, and in the heart of a resurging downtown, a decades old neighborhood grocery store may finally get its due. BY JOE STUMPE

Ray Farha, owner of Ray Sales Co.

COURTESY PHOTO

Rusty Johnson, at right, serves a customer from behind the counter at Ray Sales Co. “We get all kinds in here,” he says. “Most are nice. Every once in a while you’ll get somebody who’s having a bad day or off their meds, but it hasn’t happened in a while.”

or microwaved sandwich. If there’s not a supermarket near their home, they may buy what they need for that night’s dinner as well. “It’s kind of cool, the old-school look,” Byron Breckenridge, who takes the bus to and from Wichita State, said while stopping in last week. And when it comes to prices, he said, Ray Sales charges about half of what the vending machines in the transit center require. “I love them crackers.” “It’s just convenient and the

prices are good and the people are nice,” another rider, Shannon Bettorft, said. A Dallas native and regular at Rays for two years, she said, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Rusty Johnston said Ray Sales appreciates the business from the transit center. “We get all kinds in here,” he said. “Most are nice. Every once in a while you’ll get somebody who’s having a bad day or off their meds, but it hasn’t happened in a while.” When Ray Farha had to be out of the store recently, customers filled a legal pad with well wishes. And when the store was nearly bulldozed to make way for Intrust Bank Arena, several hundred customers signed petitions to keep it open. Not everyone is enamored of the store, though. Another bus rider said she’d prefer that a Starbucks locate there. The Farhas acknowledge that they don’t have many customers among people who’ve made Downtown their home in recent years, even though they offer delivery for orders over $40. Said one young professional: “I like vintage buildings, not vintage food.” Another reason may be that the store is only open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., when many of those residents are working. The store’s location just north of the arena leads to a steady stream of speculation about its future. “Everybody asks us that and we don’t know,” Joy Farha said. “We’ll have to play it by ear. Really we’re just going to let it happen.” Possibilities include converting it into a bar, restaurant or other high-traffic destination. Then again, with Downtown residents clamoring for a grocery store, its current use — with changes — might pay off big. Joy Farha mentions as a potential model the Vermont Country Store in Weston, Vermont, which maintained an old-fashioned look while becoming nationally known through its catalogue. In the short term. they plan to make improvements to building’s windows, awning and other exterior features, including doing something — painting a mural, maybe, or the Ray Sales logo — on the south fall facing the arena. Whatever happens, the final decision will be Ray Farha’s, and it’s clear how he feels. Farha says he’s lasted for nearly 36 because of his employees and because Downtown needs a grocery store. He still enjoys the people who come through the door, whether they’re buying 500 brown paper bags or a Cherry Mash bar. “He’s the heart and soul of this place,” said Joy Farha. “He’s going to keep it open as long as he can.”

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

2009

THE YEAR IN REVIEW A month by month look back at the highs and lows of life in the old neighborhood. BY BARRY OWENS We certainly do a lot of looking back here at The Commoner. But then, when you live in an old neighborhood—stately, established and virtually unchanged for decades—there are not a lot of new developments to explore month to month. So it is that this humble neighborhood newspaper’s history pages are often fat and the news pages thin. That does not mean that 2009 was an uneventful year in College Hill—or in Crown Heights,

Uptown and Sleepy Hollow, or along the avenues that each of the neighborhoods share. The past year saw carnivals at Clifton Square, disco dancing in the school gym, oysters at church, and one eventful night, a house crawled up the middle of Douglas Avenue. Those were some of the highlights we found as we flipped through back issues of The Commoner last month. But there were more sobering finds, such as the passing of Crown Uptown Dinner Theatre owner Ted Morris and

the closing of Barrier’s. There was even a bit of news coming out of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, and all sorts of good and bad things seemed to be happening on Belmont Place. Best year ever? Probably not. But the passing of 2009 in the old neighborhood should not go undocumented. And afterward, we can all go back to perusing the less recent history pages.

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

It was a tumultuous year for the Crown Uptown Dinner Theatre, and it began in the worst possible way—with the death of theatre founder and owner Ted Morris. Morris died just before the New Year, casting a mournful gloom on the annual year-end show and putting the future of the theatre in doubt. Ted’s widow, Karen Morris, ran the theatre for a time, but abruptly announced her retirement in June, and the theatre was slated to close. But general manager Robert Brinkley stepped in to buy the business and the doors have remained open. This year, the New Year’s show was sold out again.

What was the deal with that house on the corner of Douglas and Rutan? “It was like the Wizard of Oz the way it just plopped down,” said Cheryl Smith, owner of Creative Catering and Cafe. The house actually only traveled a few hundred yards. It was trucked over from nearby Victor Place, where it was the last house on the corner of the block. It was moved to make way for a parking lot for Parkstone. The house eventually found a new home at Clifton Square, but not before alarming the neighbors who discovered it lodged on Yale Street one morning in the spring. “You don’t see that every day,” said neighbor Brian Adamson.

The crumbling Belmont Place arches finally got a makeover, thanks to the street’s homeowners association. Belmont Place residents pitched in to pay for the nearly $100,000 renovation of the neighborhood’s most iconic feature. The Classical Revival style piers, connected with wrought iron arches, bookend Belmont Place at Douglas and Central. The limestone monuments were built in 1925. And they looked it. It took months to resurface the marble, and the Douglas arch was completely dismantled, but by summers end, the restoration was complete.

One sunny weekend in April at Clifton Square, burgers sizzled on the grill, music wafted through the parking lot and there was a hint of patchouli in the air. It was the Clifton Square Music and Art Festival, an event that brought together a disparate group of musicians and their fans–from heavy metal to R&B to folk—and artists to the square for two nights of performances and displays. This was not the usual crowd. “I don’t know where they came from, but I wish they would stay,” said Terri Windsor, owner of Garden Reflections. “This is the best weekend Clifton Square has seen in years.”

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

In May, we finally caught up with Grant and Janet Rine and asked a simple question: just what exactly do you plan to do with that church? The College Hill residents had purchased the former Hillside Christian and First Southern Baptist church at Hillside and English streets, and their plans for the old building were sketchy at the time. Certainly, the 32,000-square-foot structure had possibilities. Weddings? Storage? Since then, inspiration has struck. A theatre and venue called Rine Center for the Performing Arts.

Alan and Kathleen Pearce finally topped off their home, the 1887 Proudfoot and Bird cottage called Aviary, by replacing the ornamental peak piece on the roof. It would be nice to report here that the installation meant that the house was completely restored, and the Pearces could enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. But there remain a few nagging details: a balcony needs work, a wooden arch is missing, a brick chimney was originally stone. “Will we get around to all of that? I don’t know,” said Kathleen. “But if you wanted it to be absolutely accurate, you would need to have those things done.”

Lincoln Heights Village, at Douglas and Oliver, turned 60 years old in July, and with a fresh coat of paint, did not look a day over 30. The merchants planned a celebration and invited the whole neighborhood. Which seemed fitting, as developer Walter Morris considered the village shopping center to be the heart of the neighborhood, and the crowning jewel of his long development career. “It is not merely the best in the Middle West,” Morris, then 90-years-old, said during the opening of the mall in 1949. “It is the nicest shopping center in the world.”

By day, it was an impressive new feature on the neighborhood landscape. By night, it glowed. The neighborhood got a new fountain, this one at Parkstone. Kent Williams, a local artist and architect, installed a megalithic, seven-tiered fountain in the pocket park on Victor Place at Rutan, just in front of the new Parkstone town houses. Lights inside the fountain gave it an orange glow. How might it compete with the sometimes sudsy neighborhood favorite on Fountain Street? “I hope that it bubbles beautifully and no one gets it in their eyes,” Williams said.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

2009

THE YEAR IN REVIEW A month by month look back at the highs and lows of life in the old neighborhood. SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

“The time has come,” said Celia Gorlich, who announced in September that she would step down as president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association. Gorlich had been heavily involved with the neighborhood association since its inception in the 1990s. She started on the crime committee, launched the newsletter, then it was on to the vice presidency, and finally the presidency. She is only the third president in the association’s history. “We need new people,” Gorlich said. “We need new ideas.”

Life long College Hill resident Bill Hess was elected president of the College Hill Neighborhood Association in October. Hess is Vice President and Land Manager with McCoy Petroleum Corp., and the owner of more than 40 rental units in College Hill. He and his wife, Judy, are the former owners of Inn at the Park and the Venue. Though they now live on Terrace, the couple began the tradition of lighting up Pershing for the holidays and have long been involved in the neighborhood association.

The grind of a long year operating in a woeful economy finally took its toll in College Hill. By November, about a half dozen small businesses had shuttered or planned to call it quits by the new year. Among them were Barrier’s, a retail anchor in the neighborhood for decades. Caffe Posto, across the street, closed their doors. Myoptix, the designer frame shop just next door, closed as well. At Clifton Square, The Bay Leaf Cafe folded up their table clothes for the last time. And at Garden Reflections, owner Terri Windsor planned her going out of business sale. “I can’t be bitter,” Windsor said. “I’ll just be broke.”

In response to an alarming number of residential robberies in College Hill in previous months, the College Hill Neighborhood Association devoted its quarterly meeting in December to addressing the problem. Uniformed cops, detectives, even a crime reporter from a local newspaper provided tips on avoiding break-ins. Chief among them is to lock your doors, never leave your car running in the driveway, and to consider installing outside security lighting. No robberies were reported in the neighborhood last month.

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

COMMUNITY CALENDAR Word & Note

Christmas Tree Recycling

Plymouth Congregational Church, 202 N. Clifton, will host its second annual Word & Note: The Divine Arts of Knowledge and Exultation, on the weekend of Feb. 5-7. The series will feature lectures and presentations by biblical scholars John Dominic Crossan and Marcus J. Borg, and performance by internationally known singer and popular Music Theatre of Wichita performer Arthur Marks, accompanied by David Josefiak. “Word and Note is a way to introduce provocative thoughts and ideas in the fields of theology and music,” said Rev. Dr. Donald P. Olsen, Senior Minister at the Church. Refreshments, wine and cheese, will be served. Tickets are $15 for each individual event, or $45 for the series. All events will be held at the church. Tickets are available by calling the church office at 316-684-0221. Visit www.plymouth-church.net, for a complete schedule.

Need to lose the Christmas tree? College Hill United Methodist Church, 2930 E 1st St., this month will host a recycling drop-off site for trees. Drop-off is in the west parking lot of the church, located at 1st and Erie streets.

Call for Submissions College Hill United Methodist Church, 2930 E. 1st St., is seeking 2010 art submissions for its Parlor Gallery. Booking is on a monthly or two month basi and the parlor can show about 12 to 15 paintings or photographs. The church is seeking artists for the months of March and beyond. The church does not charge a commission and all sales go the Artist. For booking or more information, e- mail, Mark Walker @ mswalk@cox.net

read local. shop local. advertise local. 689-8474 (it’s a local call)

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER

HISTORY

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

A Proudfoot and Bird designed College Hill school building, circa 1890, may have been the finest, but it was not the first school house in the neighborhood. BY JEFF A. ROTH

ollege Hill’s ubiquitous blinking school zones are a daily reminder of the various paths trodden by the neighborhood’s youngest residents to their schools: Hyde, Blessed Sacrament and College Hill. These schools have operated, for the most part, within the age of the automobile, replete with curb side drop offs and crosswalk safety patrols. Time has largely erased the memory, however, of College Hill’s schools of the horse and buggy era. The record of their existence is yellowed, frail and boxed away, but it can still be revisited. The history of public schools in Wichita is archived at the historic McCormick Elementary School at McCormick and Martinson, operated by volunteers as a museum since 1992. From its file cabinets, as well as the publication “A History of Wichita Public School Buildings, 1997,” one can look back to the origin of nearly every public school in the city. For instance, College Hill Elementary School’s current, modern building, dating to 1977, was built on the site of its 1912 predecessor, an impressive red brick building with massive pillars and lintel guarding its entryway. Many area residents attended the red brick school; some watched its demolition in 1976 from the front steps of nearby Plymouth Congregational Church. But even it had a predecessor, dating back to 1889.

College Hill principal Ella Taft, backrow left, poses with students in 1897. The school, opened in 1890, had three teachers and taught grades one through eight.

PHOTO FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOHN M. HYDE

OLD SCHOOL

Proudfoot and Bird built a fine school on the hill, but it was not the neighborhood’s first.

On August 5, 1889 the Wichita Board of Education received a petition from the residents of College Hill asking that the lot at the northwest corner of Clifton Avenue and Prospect (First Street) be purchased for a school for the

area’s children. The petition was approved and a three story stone and brick building was design by architects Proudfoot and Bird. Although $6,280 was budgeted for its construction, it was later reported that the project would be

MCCORMICK SCHOOL MUSEUM

scaled back, closer to a $4,000 estimate. Fearing shortcuts were about to be taken, former Wichita mayor and College Hill resident Ben W. Aldrich decried that, “he wants it generally understood that College Hill does not propose to have any cheap uncomfortable building but in his judgment something in keeping with that part of the city.” Wichita Eagle June 19, 1890. The building was completed in handsome fashion and dedicated on November 30, 1890. Children from nearby farm and suburban families wore paths across the mostly open, undeveloped area to reach the school on the hill. Many years later some probably regaled their grandchildren with stories of walking miles to school, in the snow, uphill…both ways. Among the school’s first students were the children of nearby neighbor and Mentholatum inventor A.A. Hyde. In 1897 Paul and Ruth Hyde posed for a school photograph with Principal Ella Taft who served from 1897 to 1901. The school eventually had three teachers and covered grades one through eight. The College Hill School of the 1890s was not, however, the first school on College Hill. There was yet an earlier school, from the decade of the 1870s, a one-room country schoolhouse located on the road to Augusta (later Central Avenue) at the half section line (later Bluff). It was known as Cook’s Hill School having derived its name from the CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ JANUARY 2010

HISTORY

OLD SCHOOL

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first settlers north of the road, Andrew J. Cook and Robert S. Cook. The Cooks were the first to own the southwest and southeast quarter sections of Section 14 (due north of College Hill’s Section 23), carved out of the former Osage Indian reservation by the government in 1871. Though not required to do so by any land use decree, they set aside an acre of land for a school. The earliest known depiction of Cook’s Hill School is found in the 1882 Edwards Atlas Map, Wichita Township, where “School No. 2” is shown with an icon representing a country schoolhouse. Sedgwick County gave Cook’s Hill School the designation District No. 2, a designation that would stay with it (and its successors) for the next 70 years. A subsequent 1901 Map of the City of Wichita depicts it as “Cook School” and places it to the east on the northeast corner of Central and Bluff, an apparent relocation from A.J. Cook’s land to Robert Cook’s land, yet still a country school outside the city limits. Although no known image of the school exists, the Kansas State Historical Society has in its collection a photograph of a one-room schoolhouse, labeled on the back, “unidentified Sedgwick County School.” If not the actual Cook’s Hill School, the image is certainly representative of rural schools operating in Sedgwick County at the time. Sedgwick County records of the Cooks’ school date back to 1903 and are maintained in the archives in the basement of the Sedgwick County Courthouse. These documents show the teachers’ budgets and salaries that were annually accounted for as well as the pupils’ names, ages and achievements. The curriculum challenge for the teacher in a one-room schoolhouse was having children of different age levels learn subjects at different levels of comprehension, all in the same room. In 1903 there were students ages 6, 7 and 8, but also three students ages 19, 20 and 21. The first 15 minutes might be devoted to instructing the youngest in “Reading” before moving to the next age group for their reading instruction. In the

A one-room schoolhouse, labeled as “unidentified Sedgwick County School.” If not Cook’s Hill School, the image is representative of rural schools at the time.

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A 1901 map of the neighborhood shows College Hill School at First and Clifton and Cook’s School at Central and Bluff.

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next period the groups would be staggerstarted in “Arithmetic” and so forth. They would all come together for the “Story Period” or the “Music Period” and would likewise participate as a group in special parties and programs at Easter, Halloween, Christmas and Kansas Day. The children of Cook’s Hill School came from the homes and farmsteads clustered near Central. The census records for the year 1900 listed their parents’ occupations as mostly farmers, a

butcher, stock breeder, or keeping house, for instance. The children of school-age were listed as “at school.” The names of the children in the census records also appear in Cook’s Hill School records. In 1904 there were 28 students from 13 families. And although their addresses were not listed, many of their names coincide with families identified as residents on 1901 and 1905 maps of the area. The country school on the hill was clearly a community effort.

The early records also reveal that the school was, after 30 years, still very much a family effort, courtesy of the Cook descendants. In 1904, the school was in the care of A. J. Cook’s daughter Emma (treasurer) and her husband John (clerk). Granddaughter Gertrude served as a teacher and the youngest grandchildren, John, Jr. and Albert were students. Cousin Carrie Cook, from the Robert Cook family, was also in attendance as a 16 year old. Classmate Clara Appling, a 13 year old neighbor from the south side of the road, brought distinction to the school in 1904. The newspaper was reporting the City’s plans to celebrate Memorial Day, still honoring the veterans of the Civil War. It was a city-wide event. The people in town were provided extra trolley service to the hillside cemeteries, Highland and Maple Grove, in order to decorate the graves of the soldiers and family members buried there. Even a Frisco Railway steam locomotive train was fired up to carry passengers out east on its tracks up to the cemeteries. Later that day a parade was scheduled, ending at the Toler Auditorium for invocations and recitations. Clara Appling was complimented for her recitation of a poem by John Hendriks, “When the Boys in Blue Are Gone,” eulogizing the dwindling number of surviving Union Soldiers from the great conflict. Cook’s Hill School, District No.2, was eventually relocated as the city’s growth pushed its rural mission eastward. The school’s next stop was another one-room schoolhouse built on the northeast corner of Oliver and 9th Street, the site of today’s Adams Elementary School. Cook’s Hill School, affectionally known then as “the little white schoolhouse,” operated there until 1943. It has since been forgotten but for the archives and the alumni. Danny Goldschmidt, a 6 year old student at at the school in 1941, fondly recalls his days spent there. There was only one teacher, he recalls, eight pupils and a portrait on the wall of the 32nd President of the United States—a man by the name of Roosevelt, Franklin D.