Centerville High School Yearbooks 1909-1981

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1909 Black Diamond Yearbook
1909 Black Diamond Yearbook Cover

The first schools taught in Appanoose County were private or subscription schools. Their accommodations, as may be readily supposed, were not good. Sometimes they were taught in small log houses erected for the purpose. Stoves and such heating apparatus as are in use now were unknown. A mud-and-stick chimney in one end of the building, with earthen hearth, with a fire-place wide enough and deep enough to take in a four-foot back log, and smaller wood to match, served for warming purposes in winter and a kind of conservatory in summer. For windows, part of a log was cut out in either side, and may be a few panes of eight-by-ten glass set in, or, just as likely as not, the aperture would be covered over with greased paper. Writing benches were made of wide planks, or, may be, puncheons resting on pins or arms driven into two-inch auger-holes bored into the logs beneath the windows. Seats were made out of thick planks or puncheons ; flooring was made out of the same kind of stuff. Everything was rude and plain ; but many of America’s greatest men have gone out of just such schoolhouses to grapple with the world and make a name for themselves, and names that came to be honor to their country. In other cases, private rooms and parts of private houses were utilized as school-houses ; but the furniture was just as plain.

In 1909, the Centerville High School was part of the Center School. In 1910-11, the Washington High School was built on the west side of 12th Street, north of Wall Street to move the high school students out of Central School. This new high school began with about 250 pupils. It was again over-crowded by 1917 as more students chose to go on to high school. In 1918 a new Centerville High School was built on the west side of 12th Street at a cost of $175,000. It had three floors and a basement, which contained the gymnasium. It was occupied in January of 1919. When the high school moved out, the Washington School reverted to being the Washington Junior High School and absorbed all the Centerville students in the seventh and eighth grades.

Centerville High School Yearbooks 1909-2013

These 47 yearbooks have been placed online by the Appanoose County Historical Society. They are downloadable PDF’s and cover the years of 1909-1981 (incomplete).

8 thoughts on “Centerville High School Yearbooks 1909-1981”

    • Hi Mike,

      The 1982-1993 were uploaded at one time by the Centerville High School, but I can no longer find them online. Sorry.

      Dennis

      Reply

    • I am not positive, but a general trend during the Depression years was to stop publication of these high school annuals. Money was short, supplies even more short. The High School suffered a catastrophic fire in 1938 and was rebuilt in 1940. It is that year, in the new school building, that the yearbooks appear to have started back up publishing.

      Reply

  4. I HAVE MY MOTHER’S 1930 BLACK DIAMOND YEARBOOK. SHE TOLD ME THAT IT WAS THE LAST YEAR IT WAS PUBLISHED BECAUSE OF THE DEPRESSION. I WOULD LIKE TO DONATE TO A HIGH SHCOOL HISTORY SOCIETY. PLEASE CONTACT ME.

    Reply

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