Most of us can remember educators who made a difference, delivered meaningful lessons, or related fascinating stories from their lives. We don’t know much about the teaching techniques or curriculum of Yelm’s 19th century teachers, but we have been able to find out some interesting information about the lives of a number of those instructors. [...]

The Thirties: Yelm Schools During the Great Depression
Introduction: The story of Yelm schools in this era is revealed though the school board minutes of the early part of the decade as well as selections from the annuals of the time.
Yelm Schools in the Thirties: The Depression and a Fire
School Budgets of County Are Markedly Lower [...]

Yelm throughout the 1960’s

Introduction: Some people consider fifty years to be a cut-off point what contsitutes history. We can now begin viewing the 1950’s as history. For this decade we have many of the same types of documents and visual artifacts which have been used to record other decades. There are pictures from the annuals, but there is [...]

 School Days in the Forties

Introduction:
A Board’s Eye View of the Forties
High School Life Before World War II
Edgar Prescott: Teaching in the Forties
Frank Bower: Principal, Coach, Counselor, Friend
Conditions in the Yelm Schools in 1946
Scenes from the 1940 Tornado Annual
Scenes from the 1941 Tornado Annual
Scenes from the 1942 Tornado Annual
Scenes from the 1944 Tornado Annual
Scenes from [...]

Introduction: 
There is little information about the Willow Lawn district. Records show that J. C. Conine taught there in 1891, later serving on the board of directors. In a 1992 letter, Dallas and Marguerite Edwards wrote that Willow Lawn was built on property donated by James Longmire. More specifically, they placed the building in the area [...]

According to The Story of Yelm the Tebotten District was created when the old Deschutes District was broken up in the late 1890s. The authors identify Birdie Cooper at the school they refer to as Longmire. (This can be confusing due to the fact that there was also another district south of Yelm named Longmire [...]

There is a small amount of documentary evidence of the Smith school. The district was located on the western side of Lake Lawrence. State archives have yielded a list of teachers from 1891-1899. In July 1901 districts #41 and French #34 were combined to form the new “French” district, #69.
There is a 1908 timber [...]

There is a picture of the Mountain View school which has been circulating in the Yelm area for decades. The name, “Mt. View School,” can be read on the side of the building. There is a bell tower above the entrance and an unknown female teacher stands in front of the school. Beyond this we [...]

District #28 – Deschutes/Morehead
Local historians claim that the Deschutes School was first held in a log cabin in 1876. Renny Pollard was an early teacher at the school. The earliest document from the school is a postcard communication from 1884. In 1894 there were 19 students enrolled at the school. L. J. Byrne was serving [...]