Boundary Line Disrupts Cottonwood Creek Education
A newly surveyed border places a school district in Oregon, effectively cutting it off from Washington school funds.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It appears that the boundary line separating Oregon from Washington, as recently run by Mr. Majors, among other things interferes with school interests somewhat. The intelligent and appreciative farmers residing in School District No. 7, on Cottonwood Creek, in this valley, and who have heretofore paid their teachers out of the school funds for this valley, are just now greatly exercised concerning the anomalous position in which said school is left by the boundary line, placing it in Oregon. Mr. T. J. Swezea informs us that he thinks it too late to have a district laid off and a school organized in time to entitle them to receive their proportion of the Oregon school fund; and consequently they will have to wait until next year. The parents of children residing in the district have chosen Mr. Doston, late of the Willamette Valley, to conduct the school. They pay him out of their own pockets. There are some 34 pupils in daily attendance.
“The intelligent and appreciative farmers residing in School District No. 7, on Cottonwood Creek... are just now greatly exercised concerning the anomalous position in which said school is left.”
This reflects the administrative instability of the Pacific Northwest in 1864, where lines on a map could abruptly change a family's access to public services. Today, such boundary issues are replaced by debate over regional taxing and school district consolidation.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.