Arnold Area Historical Museum

05/29/2026

More on School Names

At the risk of overdoing a topic, I want to share some new (to me) information. I have long been fascinated by the repetitions of key words in our rural school names. When I recently learned of a new name duplication, I just had to share it.

As I mentioned last week, the material provided by Molly Nightingale enlightened me to the fact that Lincoln County District 113, in the northeast corner of Lincoln County, was known as Pleasant Hill (also Holt and Daily).

The current Arnold District 89 is composed of the original District 89 and 33 surrounding districts that chose to be annexed into District 89. Twenty-three of these were in Custer County, five in Logan County and five in Lincoln County. This offers a great opportunity for name duplication.

The names the pioneers used revealed that they loved things pleasant, peaceful and beautiful. They were people of hope. Hope focuses on such things. These names reveal how they saw the area and their approach to life.

Within the 33 official school names, the descriptor “pleasant” was used 6 times. It described hills, vales, valleys, dells and views. Thus we had Pleasant Vale, Pleasant Valley, two Pleasant Hills, a Pleasant View and a Pleasant Dell. We even had two Prairie Dells.

Dell is not a common word to most of us so I looked it up. I love what is described: a small, secluded valley or hollow, often characterized by lush vegetation and sometimes partially covered in trees.

Other geographic names I enjoy are Cedar Ridge, Lone Tree and High Point,

For all the effort given to assigning pleasing and optimistic names, the locals often defaulted to the name of a local family. Family names on our list include Weber, Simpson, Gill, Hircock, Imboden and Steele in Logan County; Steel, Mackley, Schuck, Gallington, Wood, Rosentrater, Hall and Bassett in Custer County and Kilmer, Daily, Holt, and Hoy in Lincoln County.

Lincoln County schools take the lead in providing building remnants. Pleasant Hill (aka Holt or Daily), District 113, provides a nearly complete foundation and a concrete porch floor. Prairie View, District 132, provides a set of steps. Pleasant Vale, District 6 in Logan County displays basement stairs.

05/25/2026

Our 100 for $1,000: Still Growing recognitions begin with Kristi & Rich Dvorak, who have given in honor of the Stupplebeen family. We are so grateful this campaign is still growing!!!

05/23/2026

The most recent Cornerstone renovations this spring have entailed taking down the brick walls above the roofline and building them back up. Check out this video of our talented mason working on the upper north wall in May as he rebuilds the middle terra cotta brick layer. [You won't want sound - you'll only hear the winds!] Stop by and see our progress!

05/14/2026

Comments from Molly Nightingale:

Here are my added thoughts about dist 113 based on the reading I've done about the similar canyon area SE of North Platte. There were surprisingly a large number of settlers in those canyons, way before farming took hold in the Platte Valley west of NP. I'm surmising that the soil in the canyon bottoms was decently fertile, and more importantly, there was apparently enough rain run-off that they could farm small plots without irrigation. The problem it caused for schools is that those little farms were very isolated from each other, each one in their own "draw" (often with the house near the head of the draw) with a wide, high ridge between them. The farms may not have been far apart, but the road distance down out of one draw and up the next was much farther. Even in the 1940s when many other farm districts were consolidating after the depression, the canyon schools reported that consolidation wasn't possible due to the isolation of farms, lack of good roads, and rough terrain preventing the children from walking "over the ridge" if the school was moved. So there remained a much higher percentage of small districts in the canyons that in the plains. In 1894, having the children walk the 3-4 miles to Yucca school just wouldn't have been an option.

I, too, read the reports of the Garfield district having an "east" and "west" school, and students going to each school for three month each, same teacher. I think in this case it's likely that only the older children were able to walk the distance between them, and the younger ones (and those living on the far side of each district) probably only got three months total of school. I think this was only done in the very early times, or if they were extremely poor. By 1887, per the only article I have saved in the "dist 14" folder, both Garfield schools were being operated at the same time.



Another way I've seen 2 schools in the same district used is this. There was an amazing amount of moving around on farms everywhere, back when we tend to think of "lifetime" farmers, and the number of school children in a district could vary dramatically, even through a single term. Quite frequently, once people had a deed for their homesteads, or had lived on a place long enough to have saved a bit of money, or their children were of high school age, they moved to better areas and rented their old farms. Many renters only stayed one or two years, causing school numbers to fluctuate. Or in the case of larger farms and ranch country, the hired help may or may not have had children. So, whether or not an isolated school was needed at all may have varied every term. For dist 113, in 1936, as you mentioned, the parents of the single student were apparently able to get him to Yucca school. Then in 1942, a teacher is listed for the 113. In 1947 there were no students in the district. In 1954 & 1955, a teacher is listed. So sometimes a district had several schools in the vicinity of the different farms that "sometimes" had school children, and each year just used the ones that were needed.

05/14/2026

Joys of Shared Information

It is always fun to discover information that has been hard to find. In my research into Arnold area rural schools, I have been challenged by the five school districts in northeast Lincoln County that eventually joined Arnold District 89.

Holly Tullis recently put me in touch with a page seeking information on a schoolhouse that was moved from Lincoln County to Arnold. I was immediately intrigued that someone out there was interested in Lincoln County schools. I made contact and was soon rewarded with a lot of good information.

I will be sharing part of what I have learned, but I also want to make make our readers aware of a good source of information on Lincoln County rural schools. The beginning point is the page of Molly Nightingale. Those wanting to go deeper can message Molly from her page or send her an e-mail at [email protected]. She can send you a link to her really neat map generated by Google Earth that shows the locations of Lincoln County country schools. (Link to Mollys map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=10BHA1ZwVNFf212uS9D0MnZn1COh9M34&usp=sharing). She will also gladly share from her large file that includes information on each of the 137 districts that have existed in Lincoln County.

One of the Lincoln County districts that has fascinated me is District 113 in the extreme northeast corner of the county. Molly’s information gave me a name for that district and the locations of the original sod schools. This district is a complete contrast to the Wood School that we mentioned earlier with 17 of its 19 quarters being farm land. District 113 (identified as Pleasant Hill, Holt or Daily) has 40 quarter sections with only 3-4 of them being farm land. This would typically mean fewer families, yet the 1894 Lincoln County Atlas shows two school houses. I can only surmise that the availability of a teacher and minimal expense of constructing a small sod school was preferable to sending children 3-4 miles to either Yucca Valley or District 128, Hoy School. (In re-reading this I realized two schools would equate to two teachers. But, upon reflection, I will speculate that the same teacher taught a term at one school and then a term at another. In fact, I now recall reading of a family on Garfield that attended a school west of them in the fall and then a school east of them in the spring.)

The 1936 Arnold Sentinel reported that there would be no school in District 113 that year as Franklin Scott, (father of Frank, Peg, Pat and Bonnie) would attend District 64, Yucca Valley.

In 1955, District 113 was absorbed into District 64 and then in 1957 District 64 was consolidated with Arnold District 89.

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If you have stories or pictures to share, please contact me at [email protected] or 308-870-6138.

05/12/2026

05/12/2026

Progress!!!!

05/11/2026

🎉🎉 Woohoo!! We made it to 100 donors! 🎉🎉

We are so incredibly grateful for every person who helped make the Cornerstone Campaign: 100 for $1,000 such a success. Arnold has always been more than just a town to so many people. It’s a home filled with history, memories, and generations of stories, which makes the support and interest for this project so heartwarming.

And because so many people wanted to be part of the 100 for $1,000 Cornerstone Campaign, we ended up receiving support beyond 100 donors. Before we announce the next chapter, we would like to celebrate and recognize those additional donors through a special series called 100 for $1,000: Still Growing!

Stay tuned for these additional recognitions to be announced soon! 👀