TONKAWA SCHOOL, NO. 39

Tonkawa School was built by Newt Clabaugh, who settled between Pottsville and Gentrys Mill in 1879. The school later moved to the Comanche road. 

In 1911 there were seven grades in the Tonkawa School. 

My mother, Clara Elsie Fergusson Crain, began first grade in this school in 1912. She was heartbroken when the teacher instructed her father to purchase a primer for her. Elsie could already read and did not need a primer. She learned to read using the books of her brother, William Claude Fergusson.

Mrs. Norman Rea and Miss Letrice Craig were the teachers in Tonkawa School in 1914-15 when Robert Jeff Fergusson (my grandfather), J. W. Trimble, and G. T. Kemp were the school trustees. Ethel Elma (Sills) Whaley later taught in the Tonkawa School.