Tyler County High School celebrates centennial
By MARY ROHRIG, Special to The NewsMIDDLEBOURNE - Three teachers and 42 students opened the doors to the state's first public high school in 1908.
Lawrence B. Hill served the dual role of principal and teacher at Tyler County High School, located in the county seat of Middlebourne. It had been his job during the summer to recruit students for the new school by visiting homes throughout the small, rural county.
"The people of that county really did not know what kind of institution they were voting for when they voted to establish the new high school," wrote Hill in an autobiographical excerpt printed in "The History of Tyler County to 1984." "They did know that they felt the need for some better type of education for their children."
On Nov. 6, 1906, voters in Tyler County agreed to fund the experimental school. Prior to that, education had been provided through municipal, district or private schools. Tyler County High School would offer an education to anyone in the county, except for those living in Sistersville where there already was an independent high school.
The new school cost $70,000 and was paid for by a voter-approved levy. That included a $5,000 purchase price for 4.5 acres of land sold to the local school board by Lloyd and Mary Stealey. Their grandchildren, Philip Stealey and Ruth Stealey Green, several decades later would deed additional land to the board of education for a vocational building.
The Middlebourne and outlying community continued to support the school for 85 years. Voters never turned down a school levy and the student population grew to its largest number, 412, in the early 1980s.
"The community support was 110 percent for everything," recalls Jimmy Wyatt, who served as principal from 1975 until the school was closed in June 1993. "It was a small school that was the center of attraction for the community. The personal relationships were strong; every teacher knew every student."
The final days of the school echoed the early ones, when teachers then also knew students and their needs.
"We offered two curriculums, one called the college preparatory for those who expected to go to college, and the other, the agricultural curriculum, for students who would possibly go back to the farm," wrote Hill. "Since there were only three teachers, each of us was obliged to teach a wide range of subjects."
When the first classes began on Sept. 28, 1908, they had to be held in the circuit courtroom and jury rooms of the nearby Tyler County Courthouse. Construction of the new school was behind schedule, and it would be November before the students could move into the new facility.
By March of 1909, a spring term for teachers was offered to those who wanted to teach. This boosted the student population to 161. At the time, Tyler County High School was listed as just one of 10 educational institutions in the state offering a Normal Training curriculum that taught teachers how to teach.
"Everyone applauded, and even I was surprised," wrote Hill. "After all, the work shaking the bushes the preceding summer had not been in vain."
The first graduating class in 1910 had 14 students, six boys and eight girls. The final graduating class in 1993 gave diplomas to about 350 young Tyler County men and women.
"Although it was still very structurally sound, the very physical nature of the building dictated its closure as a school," said Wyatt. "We had an early 20th century building; it was not what we needed to move into the 21st century."
The Tyler County Board of Education in 1993 closed both Tyler County and Sistersville High Schools, along with three middle schools, and merged them into a $16 million complex, Tyler Consolidated Middle/High School.
"We did give the building a nice closure," said Wyatt. "The students took down the flag the last day before classes, in a military style, signifying that its day was done. They folded the flag then gave the building a round of applause before leaving one final time to go home."
Although the school was closing its doors to students, time would soon tell that its classrooms would not cease teaching.
Glenn Moore saw to that.
As a charter member of the Tyler County Heritage and Historical Society, he helped negotiate a deal with the Board of Education that allowed the non-profit historical group to convert the school into a museum.
"It was Glenn's idea; he thought it was a nice school and was a big opportunity that we could handle," said his widow, Ruth, who continues today as the president of the society.
After meeting legal obligations posed by the Tyler County Board of Education, in 1995 the building was deeded to the historical society.
"They included a clause that said we had 10 years to make it a success, or they could buy it back," said Ruth Moore.
Today, the Tyler County Museum could be described as a diamond in the rough that has something for everyone.
Each classroom in the three-story brick structure has been converted into a piece of history - except one that remains today as it was on that final day in June 1993 when students attended classes there.
"When the board of education held its auction after closing the old schools, we bought every one of the old wall maps, dating back to the 1800s. Many of them are in the 1993 classroom," said Moore.
The Tyler County Museum pays tribute through memorials to those who have lived and worked in this small rural county. Perhaps its most notable native son is former two-time Governor Cecil H. Underwood.
It was in Tyler County High School, growing up as a young teenager, where Underwood once listened to history and English lectures. He has been a generous benefactor to his alma mater.
"He's given us old photographs of his family farm at Josephs Mills," said Moore. "They show his humble beginnings; his mother with her large flower gardens that she always enjoyed."
Included in the Underwood room is the dress that the former governor's mother, Mrs. Della Underwood, wore at her son's first inauguration in 1957. A glass cabinet displays the toys the governor played with on the family farm that he still owns.
Political posters line the walls, one proclaiming "Another Democrat for Underwood," perhaps the secret to the Republican's victory in a heavily Democratic state.
The museum boasts a genealogy room, equipped with on-line computers, that is one of its most popular attractions.
There also is an old general store, complete with glass medicine bottles, food tins, and sewing notions. There is a barber shop, post office, and an original bank teller's window and office.
Visitors can view the "Wall of China," lined with dozens of patterns from the old Paden City Pottery. There is a primitive room that displays kitchen utensils and appliances from the early 1900s, an undertakers' room with unique woven baskets used to transport deceased persons, and reconstructed offices of Dr. James A. Baker, who had a general family practice in Middlebourne, Dr. K. Cochran, a Sistersville dentist, and Dr. Phillip Webb, a former Sistersville optometrist.
On the front lawn, museum-goers can tour the Williamson family log cabin, originally built in the 1700s, or the Ross Run schoolhouse, which Underwood attended when he was in the seventh and eighth grades. He earned extra money working as the school's custodian each morning before classes started, tending to the potbellied stove that remains today in the center of the one-room school.
