The Doty School of Kimball
Doty School
Smith Township
Brule County, South Dakota
Introduction
The following was taken from Brule County History published by the Brule County Historical Society (1977). It describes a country school that was well known to our ancestors. Names which figure into our own ancestry have been highlighted. The population size for Smith Township in 1900 was 99 people. (Compare that to 148 people who lived in Highland Township at the same time). The Boney and Ryan families lived in this township. The following information appears as is seen in this book. Nothing has been edited.
Doty School
(Pages 98 – 99)
Sometime in the early years before the 1890’s parents in Smith Township needed schools for their children.
In the NE corner of the township an acre of land was donated by a bachelor, Bert Doty, for a place to build the schoolhouse. He often said that was his contribution to the future generation when someone “Kidded” him about it. In old records, I find that in 1902 Bertha Kinsella was teacher, after that Alice Anderson, Kit Kennedy, Frank Ryan, Annabelle Conley, Emma Bickner and Nettie Raish were some of the teachers who taught there. Most of these teachers taught here several terms.
Pupils in the early years were Stewarts and Griswolds, followed by Ryans, Quillians, Smiths, Bickners, Pattersons and Petersons.
In later years, the land surrounding was owned by the Bickner family and one spring the “Bickner boys” found you could get trees started from cuttings and after planting trees by their home decided to plant some in the low ground west of the schoolhouse. They stuck the cuttings into this wet ground and in a few years three rows of cottonwoods were growing, far exceeding their expectations and added a nice appearance to the school grounds.
(Page 398)
The following information was found in the Con Raish family write-up in the same book.
Arthur L. Raish was born May 5, 1900. He attended the country school not far from the farm. At that time teachers were usually those completed the eighth grade and on passing a written examination were hired to teach. Some of his teachers were, Frank Ryan, Alice Anderson, Lulu Jones Boney, Alice Quillen Gibson, and Nan Corcoran Van Zant.
(Page 98)
About the year 1939 was the last year the school operated. It was brought and moved to a farm and converted into a garage or for other purposes.