| City/Town: • Arnett |
| Location Class: • School |
| Built: • 1928 | Abandoned: • 1988 |
| Status: • Abandoned • Burned Down |
| Photojournalist: • Jeff Hodge |
Most people know Arnett, OK as being located in Ellis County but many don’t know there is another one in Harmon County. Now, this Arnett is the one we will be talking about but only consists of the abandoned school buildings and one farm structure left. The first Arnett school was constructed in 1928 as the sign reads above the entrance to the property. By 1934 the school was large enough to warrant the construction of a gymnasium. F.M. Pease Principal took care of the dedication on December 28th of that year. Just a year later more additions were added to the campus of the country school and construction of two additional classrooms, a native stone teacherage, and a truck shed were underway.
Being one of the largest rural schools it offered the popular sports of track, basketball, baseball, and a 4-H club. They received roughly $1,651 in state aid as opposed to the $150 that other schools in th district received. All grades were taught here having a total enrollment of ninety-five and eleven teachers in the 1940s. But like all of the other schools in Harmon County one by one they dropped like flies failing to support dwindling towns. Arnett was consolidated with Hollis at some point between 1964-1970 and the campus was left abandoned.
Gallery Below of Arnett School
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/699975006/?terms=%22arnett%20school%22&match=1
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I went to Arnett from 1977 to 1979. I remember so much about my time there. I didn’t graduate from there but I have so many memories from. I was also in Westview boys home. Parks cottage at first then Saunders cottage.. then Overstreet cottage just before I left Westview. I had a lot of good friends in Westview. My best friend married Donna Sherrill. Elto Argo. I will always hold them two places and those ppl in my heart and mind forever.
I attended Arnett high school from 1972 to 1974. The main part of the school burnt down,so my senior year we went to class in the ag building. It was divided into 4 classrooms. I also called Westview my home.Thanks to Burl and Yvonne Butler,and Westview bous home…I finished high school and was able to attend college.Iwill always remember Arnett and still call Hollis my home town.
I was a senior in 73 right ahead of you. We farmed way up north of Arnett. I remember the old Jr High /High School burning between my junior and senior years in the summer, and the FFA Chapter built the AG Shop Building. It’s still there. Our Chapter helped build the plywood partitions in the north end of the Ag shop for classes. We also had classes in the gym and just out under the trees if it was nice out. 0ddly, I don’t remember you but I had many friends among the Westview boys. Louis Watts was my best friend and I’ve never been able to reconnect with him. He had an older brother, Bobby. Stanten Sikes, Kenneth Bogle, Tommy Gray, Carey Hancock, Don Hale, and the Deskins boy, more were in my senior class. We graduated in the Gymn. Our class had 13 grads, biggest class in several years and the last bigger class from Arnett..
Sheri Mulkey is correct about the actual school closing year. I was one of the last residing school board members who managed the tedious fiduciary duties of making certain all legal original land contracts were honored so that property returned to the original land owners and proper steps were taken for consolidation of area students into the Hollis School district in Harmon County. All of the buildings furnishings, equipment, supplies, and tools were donated to the Hollis Independant school district. Non-removable structures, buildings, and other attached assets remained with the reclaimed property owners.
Historical places such as old ghost towns and abandoned dwellings certainly reach deep into our inner souls and do something to trigger us into attempting to understand days gone by, They always make us ask questions such as, who was here, what did they do while here, and what happened to cause their demise. Thats the conflict of humanity. Our hope is for newness of life and so deteriated structures envoke our reality that all things, even the good, has some kind of stopping point. Its kind of a personal reality check for us.
I’m a history Nutt. I probably spend too much time pondering “what it must have been like”. My wife always grounds me though when I’m on one of my historical sentimental treks wandering around some old artifacts. “They’re just old buildings” she declares. That’s quite likely her testament on how she sees me now-a-days also I think, because it has been nearly 34 years ago since Arnett was closed and I was twenty eight years old when we closed her down.
. It takes little research though to learn that Arnetts’ faulting was mostly from a lacking of financial resources. As populations dwindle so goes an communities economics sustainability. Therefore she was closed and assimilated into the town of Hollis. For the state it was about being effecient with state funds. At the time it was a seemingly high stressful event for many folks involved.
Copiosity over “who” would get the buildings and land became a hot discussion amongst us board members. Several people were interrested in them and wanted equal and fair opportunity to purchase them. Yet the right thing to do was to honor the original contracts eventhough it wasnt the popular thing. Likewise, Hollis School District and town folks had great concern about the Westview children attending the Hollis schools. There was quite a negative stigma placed upon the Westview children. Rightly so, some of the negativity came from old past events from days long gone – brought about by the mischievous behavior of old Westview Boys. It was unfairness to those present children though because most dissension related to unsubstantiated fear lingering from those archaic and outdated events. The local community had not yet experienced the new Westview tribe. Westview’s program for helping at-risk children had made leaps and bounds through the patience of long-term dedicated board members, rooted guiding directors, and long suffering and well educated staff members.
. Some things are just hard to forget I suppose. In their own time and in their own way, the Westview children debunked the people’s of Hollis fears. In a few short weeks, school teachers and the likes were touring the Westview cottages to assure the boys they were welcomed into the community. In retrospect the entire thing that initially looked like an erupted volcano became a congruence of mind and spirit for most folks that established eternal friendships and bonded bonus families.
. I know when I go by the old school place, my minds eyes and ears so quickly rewind and then replays passed conversations of board meetings, visits with joyful teachers and those not so joyful. I can remember students chasing around outside, most of them were Westview Boys Home children. Some of those Westview children were in my own cottage.
. There were long baseball games and thrilling basketball games. I have memory of a young man named Gerald who had attempted to hide what he thought was an earth worm down in the front of his gym shorts but after my examination discovered it to be a newly-born good old fashion southwest Oklahoma rattle snake. Ouch! Names pop up like Mrs Smith (H S. English teacher), Mr Carl Owen’s and Mr. Ed Jones, (also last residing board members). Regretfully so many names evade me. Not too long ago I could name every board member, teacher, and principal as well as most of the children.
So, at least this part of my faculties are still in order.
Arnett has a colorful history in the state of Oklahoma. While its landscape has sorely deteriated from the want of students, faculty, and caretakers and the remaining antiquated bones cry from solitudiary loneliness, it’s heart actually rings at the Oklahoma State Education building. Just prior to Arnett school closing, Oklahoma built a new State Education building. A part of its dedication was to seek and offer every school in the state the privilege and opportunity to have its own historical School Bell become a permanent part of the new Education Building. A Literary contest was invoked to find the winning School Bell. Each school was to research and summarize the history of their Bell and send the thesis to the state. The winners School Bell would become a permanent part of the new building and be displayed in a tower. Arnett won the contest! I believe Mrs Smith was the author and compriser of our collected historical information on our Bell.
So as we remminense about the old run down structures and overgrown playgrounds of our Arnett school and memories submerge us into a melancholy estate, let us not be submerged too long. The contrast is not between what the Arnett School was then and what it is now. It is about who our school represents. So let’s left our eyes from sorrowful submergence and look up into the top of tower of the Palace and remember something significant. There are no endings, just new beginnings.
We moved to Arnett in 1942 0r 43, My dad, Elbert Patton Sr. was hired as the Supt. of school and coach. We lived there until 1948. My mom Alda Patton taught 1st & 2nd grade at that time, I remember the names of a lot of students, I know Dad had the best Girls Basketball teams around with the 3 Scott girls, & Wineth Wilson to name a few, not many boys in High School because of the War, but remember Jackie Rowe and a DeFor boy and Kenneth Scively. Lindy McDanials was in a class below me . One of my friends was Manche Estes & Billy Callison. Had I stayed there I would have graduated in the class of 1952. I would like to get in touch with anyone to get caught up on things, My name is Elbert Lee Patton.
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My dad graduated from Arnett in 1985! So did his best friends, Tim Frank and Chad Powers. Tim & my dad also grew up in Westview Boys Home.
I went to Arnett High Outside Hollis Oklahoma from 1976 to 1979 loved everything about it
remember mr Lennon one of my teachers , and sherrill family Donna was in my class
Arnett school didn’t close until 1989. My mother was a teacher there from 1970 until it’s closing. My brother graduated in 1978 and I graduated in 1981. It stayed open longer than a lot of the other schools because boys from Westview Boys Home were enrolled there.