Remembering School Days Traditional Cache
PirateKate: This cache just keeps disappearing, or having other problems, so I am, regretfully, archiving it. I hope to replace it with another cache in a nearby, and hopefully more secure, location.
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Small lock & lock type container within community center grounds. Log & pen and a few small trade items. There is a small brass bell, commemorating old-time school days, for the FTF. Walk-in gate next to Masonic Lodge. Please re-hide this cache the same as you found it.
NOTE: Container swapped out 3/9/2010 - now a small camo sports case.
NOTE: Missing container has been replaced 7/20/2015 with a much smaller one (bison tube).
This is part of my “Learn About Kurten” series of caches.
This cache is in the grounds of the Kurten Community Center, which was built on the site of the Kurten School. This country school began in 1876 as a 3-room log building. The third and last incarnation, built in 1936, was a large brick building containing classrooms for 5 grades, a gymnasium/auditorium with a stage, and a kitchen for cooking school lunches. I've been told that if you cleaned your tray at lunch, you got a piece of candy on your way out for after lunch recess. At afternoon recess, if you had a nickel, you could get ice cream. School colors were purple and gold, so my FTF bell has a purple ribbon and gold bead as a salute to this bit of history.
The school was closed in 1968 and students were then bussed to schools 10 miles away in Bryan. The school building served as a community center from that time, until it became too difficult to keep in repair. The old building was torn down, and the current building erected in 1988.
Outside the main doors of the building, at N 30° 47.448 W 096° 15.671, there are memorial markers commemorating some of this history. One marker was placed in memory of my great-aunt Maggie Kelley who taught, or served as principal, here for 44 years. She is remembered fondly by all who were her students. She never spanked a child - her punishment for misbehaving students was to make them sit beside a post next to the playground during recess!
The main drive-through gates are sometimes locked, but there is a walk-in gate at N 30° 47.468 W 096° 15.608 (near the Masonic Lodge). Probably not a good idea to try this cache if there is an event in progress at the community center.
Congrats to poet.lunatic for the FTF!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
gerr