Shady Grove is what is written on the back of the picture.
The Shady Grove School, sat on the hill, left off the highway, heading east, just before you get to Twin Creek, six miles east of Mt Ida, Montgomery County, Arkansas between Hurricane Grove and Silver. Photo probably taken 1912-1913 courtesy of Cindi Barnes. Her great grandfather Oscar Dewey Pate is sitting in front 3rd from the right. Shady Grove was the only school Oscar, b. 11-20-1898, attended. His parents, James A. & Molly Pate, bought some land by an old school house when they first arrived from Alabama in January of 1911, but we don't know where that land was located but soon moved buying another section and built a old log home. That old log home is just up the hill from where the old Shady Grove School sat. So this picture was taken sometime after 1911 and before 1915. Can anyone identify any of the other children?
On the front of the picture is written S.G. Geog. Class. I assume would mean Shady Grove Geography Class. The graffiti on the wall to the right reads Walter S.
Shady Grove School was built on land deeded to School District
68 by William and Belle (nee Beam) Helton on May 7 1906. The 1908-1911
Shady Grove school house was board and batten. Board and batten was lumber (probably about 1" x 8") placed vertically, side by side, and a small strip (about 1" x 2" or 3") placed over the crack between the larger boards.
In Montgomery County: Our Heritage Vol. 1 page 510 there is a photo of the Shady Grove School with the boards running horizontal and the names of the pupils labeled including Oscar and dated 1916. Are any of these families grouped together on the 1910 census - Center Township?
In 1916 Preston and Oscar Pate contracted to clear firewood for the next school year. They cleared a large plot of land, belonging to the school and then with the help of their teacher Frank Douglas, made a baseball field on the cleared land. The school house was the center of the community, the church house and a place to have fund-raising activates. In 1915 a new school was built on the on the north side if the highway on top of the hill. The school closed 14 June 1927 due to consolidation with Mt Ida. Posted 18 Feb. 2004.
The Shady Grove school bell still exits.