Before
Bon Jellico was established, there was a one-room school called Briar
Creek on
the
place where a
Mr. Wilder had a house near the entrance to Bon Hollow
Park (circa 1985). The teacher in 1911 was Miss Flora Whitehead.
In 1912 Bon Jellico School of two rooms came alive with Mr. Joe Keehan
as principal and Mrs. Maude Foley as the teacher of the first three
grades.
The new school was
built up on a hill by itself with plenty of playground space. Everyone
in those
days raised hogs which ran free, and under the schoolhouse floor
was the hogs' bed, fleas and all. In 1926 a third room was built
on the Bon School, and Earl Lovitt was the first principal and teacher
in the three-teachers school. The other teachers were Leonard Inman
and Mary Calloway. The principal's salary with two teachers and 168
students was $85.00 per month in 1926 and $115.00 in 1927. The building
was hot in the summer and cold
in the winter.
A large potbelly stove was in the middle of each room.
On snowy days the students would all sit around the stove and would
still be cold.
Bon Jellico
School had many good things going like P.T.A., baseball, basketball,
and debates.
When the mines
closed down and people began to move away, a few people were left
on Briar Creek. The Bon Jellico School was open until 1960 and then
it closed when many rural Kentuckky schools were consolidated.
