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History of the Independent School District of Mt. Pleasant.
By Secretary Edwin Van Cise
(Excerpt from the "Mount Pleasant Journal", Thursday, July 6, 1876)

The district was organized as the Independent District of Mt. Pleasant in 1860, and has since maintained this organization with only changes made by change in laws. It included the territory embraced in the corporate limits of the city of Mt. Pleasant, but subsequent additions north and south have enlarged this area. A house was rented and a separate school opened for colored children in 1863. This was maintained for four or five years when they were admitted with the whites at the other buildings. The need of additional room being felt in 1863, the Board purchased of the county, Lots 9 and 10 in block 47 for $100, of which the county donated one half, and resolved to erect a new school house thereon. A levy of 4 mills was voted at the annual meeting in 1864. The house was not built, however, until the spring of 1866, when the contract was let to A. C. Strawn and a building two stories high with four rooms erected at a cost of $9,200. In 1868, the Advent Meeting house on Main Street was rented for primary school purposes and has been used by the board since. In 1869, the District township of Center tendered a part of its territory with school house lying north of town. This was accepted and incorporated in the Independent district. In 1876, a new cession of territory was made on the south side of town, and accepted by the Board, still further enlarging the limits of the district. At the annual meeting it was resolved to levy a tax for another school building for primary grades and a lot has since been purchased by the Board for $1,000 and a contract let for building a two story house at about $3,000.

NOTE: Resource provided by Henry County Heritage Trust; Transcription done by James Peters, University of Northern Iowa Public History Field Experience Class, Fall 2021.

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