Being a local school history teacher some of the questions that I was always asked was, "Were was such and such a school?" or "Why does our grade school have district number 9 on it when we are Unit 20?" Since our school unit overlaps into two other counties besides Effingham these questions were not so easily answered. This is one area that seems to be fading from the scene in front of us. More and more people of the one room school are leaving us and there is not a whole lot of history recorded that one can lay their hands on quickly.

The long and the short of it seem to go as thus. In 1947 the county succeeded in passing a referendum that allowed the formation of consolidated school districts. The voters in their own small school districts were allowed to vote upon which consolidated district they wished to belong to. For those districts lying close to a town such as Beecher City or Effingham there really was not much of a choice. For those on the outlying edges the races were in some cases more hotly contested. Some of the smaller school districts divided while others passed entirely into the new consolidated district.

It was decided to divide the county up into five consolidated districts and they were units number 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 alphabetically. So today we have Altamont Unit 10, Beecher City Unit 20, Dieterich Unit 30, Effingham Unit 40 and Teutopolis Unit 50. Into these districts went the smaller one room school districts. I do not have a list of all areas in the county of which schools went where, other than by comparing where the former one room school districts lay to the present school unit boundaries. I have an old map from the Regional Superintendent of Schools office but some school’s locations are not marked upon it. If I can find where all of them were I will scan it and put it on the web. You will see from the following list that they started numbering the old one room school districts from the Northeast side of county going West then dropping down on the West side and going East again until the higher numbers would end in the Southeast side of the county. Where I do not know where a school was located I have a question mark listed for the section number. Some schools were obviously added later as the population of an area warranted the addition of a school district. The Standard School #80 in Bishop Township was a later addition. We also can somewhat gauge where the population of the counties were located. Keep in mind these do not include the private schools mostly the Catholic and Lutheran schools in the county. Notice that in Jackson Township there were no less than nine rural schools! This came as a surprise to me since I reside in this township and tended to think that it was never a very populated place. A neat thing to do would be to compare the census count with the number of people in the township at that time. I find it hard to imagine that at one time Effingham County once proudly boasted of no less than 80 one-room school districts in it.

North Douglas Township

Green Creek #1 Section 22

Flatt or Bull Flatt #2 Section 29

Banner Township

Banner #3 Section 26

Shumway #4 Section 32

Breitweiser #5 Section 21

Dennis #6 Section 29 

Liberty Township

McCook (McCosh) #7 Section 25

Oak Ridge #8 Section 34

Beecher City # 9 Section 29

Moccasin Township

Pleasant Hill # 10 Section 7

Moccasin # 11 Section 9

Prairie Cottage # 12 Section 29

Highland # 13 Section 26

Kyle # 14 Section 11

Summit Township

Blue Point # 15 Section 16

North Fairview # 16 Section 31

Funkhouser # 17 Section 34

Ewington # 18 Section 26

Toothaker # 19 Section 23 or 24?

Wright # 20 Section 11

Douglas Township

North # 21 Section 9

Effingham #22 Section ?

South # 23 Section 31

Teutopolis Township

Teutopolis # 24 Section ?

St. Francis Township

Maple Grove # 25 Section 29

Harris # 26 Section 25

Plain Tree # 27 Section 22

Montrose # 28 Section 11

Bishop Township

Dieterich # 29 Section

Bishop Creek # 30 Section 8

Elliottstown # 31 Section 32?

Bishop Point # 32 Section 23

Standard #80 Section 2

Watson Township

Franklin # 33 Section 14

Bryant # 34 Section 9

Loy # 35 Section 16

Strife # 36 Section 36

Salt Creek # 37 Section 33

Watson # 38 Section 30

Jackson Township

White # 39 Section 26

Fairview # 40 Section 34

Parks # 41 Section 28

Osteen # 42 Section 30

Oak Grove # 43 Section ??

Carpenter # 44 Section 10

Hill # 45 Section 12

Defiance # 46 Section 3

Devore # 47 Section 7

Mound Township

McCoy # 48 Section 2

Mound # 49 Section 5

Altamont # 50 Section 11

Eureka # 51 Section 31

Banner # 52 Section 23

Newman # 53 Section 36

West Township

Welton # 54 Section 2

Voelker # 55 Section 8

Greider # 56 Section 20

Nirider # 57 Section 32

West Center # 58 Section 25

Mahon # 59 Section 13 

Mason Township

Edgewood # 60 Section 32

South Union # 61 Section 28

West Union # 62 Section 16

Oak Grove # 63 Section 5

North Union # 64 Section 14

Mason # 65 Section 22

East Union # 66 Section 23

Union Township

Kyle # 67 Section 27

Wilson # 68 Section 17

Oak View # 69 Section 5

Ridge # 70 Section 4

Trapp Prairie # 71 Section 12

Bethsaida # 72 Section 25

Center Union # 79 Section 15

Lucas Township

Eberle # 73 Section 29

Grange Hall # 74 Section 17

Richeson # 75 Section 3

Palmer # 76 Section 11

Maple Grove # 77 Section 27

Winterrowd # 78 Section 26

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