Unioto High School

The first school house in Union Township was built about 1800, at or near the log house of Mr. Joseph Clark. It was a structure with a puncheon floor and a roof of clapboards with eight-poles laid across to keep them on. The windows were made by cutting out a log for several feet on each side of the house and putting greased paper in the opening. One end of the house was almost entirely appropriated for a fireplace. The seats consisted of split slabs supported by wooden pins. In this manner the school houses were built for a number of years. A school was opened in a log cabin about a mile north of where Andersonville now stands, in 1815 or 1816, the teacher being a man by the name of Perkins. It was afterwards held in a school house on the Inghams’ farm. East of the village. A hewed log house was erected a short distance above Andersonville in 1823, and was used until the brick house in the village was erected. A school house was built at an early date where the Union Church now stands, and another where the upper part of the basin was, in 1814 or 1815, Mr. Young and Mr. Lowery were the teachers. One of the earliest schools was opened on the farm of Thomas Withgott in which Charles McCrea was one of the first teachers. The first school in the Cook neighborhood was kept in a six-cornered, round log school house, as early as 1805 or 1806. Ebeneezer Everts was one of the first school teachers there, teaching several terms. The first school organized under the School Law was the Quaker School, then kept in a hewed log school house.[1]

The one room school houses of Union and Scioto townships were abandoned at the end of the school year 1935-1936, upon the recommendation of the State Department of Education. A new district was created using the name Union-Scioto Rural School. The school became known as “Unioto”, a contractive term taken from Union and Scioto. A tax levy of 3 ½ mils voted by the district evolved the sum of $50,000 which was matched by another $50,000 from the Federal government under the Public Works Administration and numbered as Project M OH 1021 R. The building site was purchased from Mr. George Garrison, on Egypt Pike, for the sum of $2,000. Construction was started in February 1936, and the building was occupied September 23 of the same year. DeVoss and Donaldson were the architects, McCabe and Proctor were the contractors.[1]

It was thought that colors of purple and gold were adopted at the suggestion of one of the board members whose Chillicothe class colors were purple and gold. The mascot name of “The Shermans” was later adopted when Supt. McMahon, former general in the United States Army, was superintendent of the Unioto School. Since Unioto lies just opposite the former site of World War I Camp Sherman, the suggestion of “The Shermans” was unanimously accepted by the student body. The Tank emblem became likewise a fitting symbol for the school.[1]

In May 1937, the Unioto High School graduated its first senior class of eight members.[1]

Other One Room School Houses of the District:[1] The Hurst School, Egypt Pike and Cattail Road; The Roush’s School, Stone Road; The Bowdle School, Morrison and Albright Roads; The Andersonville School, Andersonville Road; The Dunlap School, Route 104; Sulpher Lick School, near Maple Grove Hotel; School at the Ross County Infirmary; Polk Hollow School, Polk Hollow Road ;The Steel School, Belleview Hill and Plyley’s Lane; Shady Grove School, Plyley’s Lane; Pleasant Valley School, Pleasant Valley; Frenchtown School, Frenchtown; Tootle School; Springbank School; Bier’s Run School.

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