| City/Town: • Coffeyville |
| Location Class: • School |
| Built: • 1955 | Abandoned: • 2004 |
| Status: • Abandoned |
| Photojournalist: • Darrell Powers |
The long-neglected and vandalized Longfellow Grade School was constructed in 1955 to replace the former Longfellow School that sat on the same property. The new school opened for classes after the winter break with a few things still needing to be wrapped up with construction before the building was fully complete. Within just a few months after its official completion, the old building was torn down leaving decades of former Longfellow students devasted and those incoming to only know the new building.
The decision was made to have one school and the savings in maintenance costs should offset the cost. This pitch given to the community wasn’t well-received, no one wanted to give up their neighborhood schools. But unfortunately, they were in between a rock and a hard place because the budgets wouldn’t allow all the schools to stay open regardless. In recent years it seems an entity by the name of Tree of Life Soul Winning Church Ministry Inc has owned the property but it is not clear why they abandoned it. As of 2019 the land and buildings were appraised at $41,930. It continues to get in worse shape as those neglect and vandalize the building.
Gallery Below of Longfellow School
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Longfellow School along with all the other neighborhood schools was not closed or phased out only because of budget issues, the underlying major cause was racial inequality. It seems at the time, there was one school whose students were primarily African-American had burnt and badly damaged beyond safe repair. The School Board under pressure of legal proceedings decided that combining all the students in one single building would solve the problem. They used the guise of the buildings being outdated and cost prohibitive for retrofit to push their agenda. The bond issue was presented and voted down on numerous occasions… Read more »
I went to school at Longfellow elementary. It is sad to see it now. I have many good memories of my school days.
Would never have known this place existed had I not been diverted/detoured due to Hwy 169 being closed for road work at the RR tracks. It proved a curiosity and on putting up in Nowata I looked it up. Very sad. Having been born in 57 myself and proving a rolling stone for many a year, I know well that lives were launched in many a place like this. Too bad it was budgeted out of existence. There are always plenty of lives to be launched in cozy schools and they’d be richer for it.