Riverview School dist. #10 - Jefferson Co. Okla.

Jefferson County, Oklahoma

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Riverview School District No. 10

Riverview School Building in 1965

By Dolph Crutcher*

Our school, District #10 was named "Riverview" because we could look west from the school and see Red River flowing south and the bank shining with white sand. The first school building was a tiny one-room frame structure built on the southeast corner of section 19, T 5 S, R 8 W, I.M. One year later, in 1903 another school building was erected across the road in the southwest corner of section 20. This was four miles south and three miles west of Waurika, O.T. Red River was a mile and a half west of the school. In this area the River makes a sweep flowing almost due south for ten miles before changing its course eastward.

My father, W. P. Crutcher drew a lucky number in 1901 at the opening of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache country. He filed on and proved up on, the southwest quarter of section 29, T 5 S, R 8 W, I.M. This was four and a half miles west of Sugden I.T. My father, my brothers, Phillip and Ernest, and I arrived in Sugden in November 1901. Father had been here before that time and made some improvements on the homestead. We walked from Sugden to our claim and that was the longest, coldest, four and a half mile walk I ever made. In addition to my father and brothers our family consisted of my mother and two sisters, Lucile and Theo.

I started to school at Riverview in 1902. Roy Martin is the first teacher I can recall. Ethel Jeffery and Mr. Austin were others who taught at Riverview in the early years.(1)

Among the boys and girls with whom I went to school in the early days I remember: Myrtle Stone, Lytle Stone, Carl Stone, Viola Stone, Eula Stone, Leslie Stone, Clarence Stone, Collie Witt, Josie Witt, Carl Witt, Roy Kell, Alfred Kell, Will Frost, Hollie Frost, Nova Frost, Theo Crutcher, Ernest Crutcher, Iva Thomas, Amos Thomas, Delia Kell, Walter Kell, Ollie Frost, Iva Frost, Lucile Crutcher, Phillip Crutcher, Dolph Crutcher, Lester Thomas, Jim Gardner andNell Gardener

I remember a terrible dust storm we had on March 2, 1903. The wind blew so hard and the dust was so thick that all the school pupils spent the night, either in the old school house or in a nearby half dug-out. In the early days we had a Union Sunday School which met at the school house. Mr. Kell and later Mr. Frost were Sunday School Superintendents there. In 1926 the school building burned and about 1927 or 1928 another much larger building was erected on the same site. However, it was never used as a school but only for community meetings. Riverview #10 voted to become a part of the Sugden school district in 1926. The old community building is still standing on the site although It is not (1965) in use.

(1) Old records in the Comanche County Courthouse at Lawton show Riverside No. 10 in the present Jefferson County to have been the tenth public school organized in Old Comanche County. The organizational meeting was held June 3, 1902 in the residence of E. K. Brady, on the northwest quarter of section 22. The first school board was D. E. Ackerman, W. P. Crutcher and E. Edeith Drake. All these were elected June 12, 1902. Ed.

* Dolph Crutcher, a bachelor, lives on the Crutcher family homestead, four and one half miles west of Sugden, Oklahoma. He spends much of his time visiting with early day friends and neighbors, in Waurika. Ed.

copied from: Prairie Lore, July 1966, volume 3 number 1