--photos courtesy Nancy Van Patten
Crosby, located about 10 miles west of Searcy, was a stop on the M&NA Railroad line and a healthy little community in the Roaring 20s when these photos of the Crosby School were made. The school was started in 1907. Estelle Maddox Fox of Jonesboro, Arkansas, attended the school from 1931 to 1933, then returned as a teacher for the first three grades from 1938 to 1940. The windows in the top photo open to her classroom. She recalls that Tessie and Emett Bennett were the other two teachers when she was there. Mrs. Fox identified Mrs. Bogard and Mr. Bradley as the dim images in the lower photograph, remembering that Mrs. Bogard taught younger children in the 1920s. The photos were provided by Mrs. Fox’s sister, Nancy Van Patten of Searcy. The old school, like the M&NA, no longer exists.