History

By 1925, sixty-three grade schools were holding classes throughout the county. A map of the county's school districts in operation at the time showed six areas of land that were apparently connected with school districts in either Osage (three), Crawford (two) or Franklin (one) counties. The small areas were located along the edges of the county.

Owensville was listed a No. 44 Districts immediately surrounding Owensville were Boettcher, NO. 45, Old Woollam, No. 38, Manda, No. 39, Wisemann, No. 40, Morgan, No. 43, Oak Grove, No. 51, Lone Ridge, No. 50 and Canaan, No.49.

Fourteen years later, a 1939 story in The Republican noted the opening of 60 rural schools in Gasconade County.

The rural school district system continued until May of 1949 when county-wide elections formed two reorganized districts in the southern portion of the county-R-II and R-III. A ballot issue to form an R-I district in the northern part of the county failed. The R-I district was finally approved in the northern portion of the county in a 1958 vote.

The rural schools were no more

The county's board of education had seen the writing on the wall-the days of the small, rural school districts were over.

They had served their purpose but had become obsolete.

District's such as No. 42-the Excelsior Hinton School-had gone from an enrollment of 54 students in 1881 to just seven girl in 1947. That was the year it was closed and was consolidated with Rosebud School District, No. 41.

The last rural school in operation in the county was the Neese School District, No. 28, west of Drake on Highway 50.