Koonkazachey

Location Relative to Con. 8: 3.0 miles West, 9.0 miles North (?)

Year of District Formation: 1903-1907

Teachers

These are given in great detail complete with salaries by Sally Mansell in a fine article in Pioneering in Kiowa County.¹

Principles

None Listed

School Board

None Listed

Building

None Listed

The location given is the NW corner of the town plat. Bill Blish has taken me to the site where there is no evidence left of the old school. Also note that schools more than 5 mi north of Con. 8 are north of the “correction line”. I have not allowed for the offset in giving mileage. I could give the legal descriptions, but those are very hard for most people to read. The new system of rural road designations based on 10 blocks to the mile is going to be more useful for drivers but are not given on many maps. Go here for current map of school locations.

In 2003, Bill Blish took me to the exact Koonkazachey site (which he recalled with precision although there are no markings left). A handheld GPS device recorded the following coordinates for the site: 34.9058 degrees North, 99.1621 degrees West.

The year of formation is based on the district number. Balyeat states that four districts were added in the four years 1903-1907, bringing the total to 110. Koonkazachey was probably organized in the later part of that period. That reference also records that part was annexed to Con. 8 in 1949, but transfers beginning in 1945. I am certain that some of the areas north of the correction line were served by Con. 8 before that. I know that in the spring of 1943, the #3 bus went as far north as the road just south of Camelback Mountain. Of course, as in the case of Gladson, the high school students would have the option of attending Con. 8. The Blishes began attendance at Con. 8 in 1940, but that could have been because J. D. was entering 9th grade. The Pioneering in Kiowa County series contains a lot of pictures of students and teachers at Koonkazachey with some identified, including the Blishes in 1938-39. None of the Blish family are shown in the 1941-1942 picture. Ted Blish has verified this 1940-41 date as his first attendance at Con. 8 from the fact that he was in the 3rd grade at the time. The Blishes are identified as Con. 8 students in articles found in the Student Review  stories for 1940-41. Actually the 1938-39 photo identifications give names as J. D, Bill and Teddy “Bish”. Bish was an important name in the northern part of the county, but I am rather certain both from the first names and what I can make out of the details of the picture, that the people depicted are the Blishes. Ted has also told me that Koonkazachey did have high school work in 1940, but his father obtained a transfer to Con. 8 because he thought it offered a better educational opportunity for his children.

I wrote most of the last paragraph before I was able to read a copy of Sally Mansell’s article, and I have let it stand with this note added. She was apparently working from the actual records of the district and was able to give much more precise details over the entire period of operation. She gives the year the school began operation as 1906. The year of district formation was also probably at this time as had been inferred from the high district number. It has also come to my attention that there is a good reason that the district was not even organized on paper before 1906. The town of Koonkazachey lies within or on the eastern boundary of an area once known as the “Little Pasture”. This land was not plated until 1906, and from 1901 till then was range land leased to ranchers. Ms. Mansell states also that a second room was added in 1907 and includes an early photograph of the building.

Sources

1. Pioneering in Kiowa County, v 1, pgs 276-279. An extensive article by Sally Mansell about Koonkazachey.