For generations to come, the memory one of the most loved and cherished landmarks of Harlan will long be remembered. Although the building has been removed from few many years, the menory still lingers because many of the pioneer citizens began their first school days there.

The building was the Masonic Temple. The two story frame building faced Main Street, a few feet from the interescetion of Main and Central. The Cumberland Hardware is there today.

The corner building faced Central Street. It was a general merchandised store owned by George W. Green. Green's little daughter, Ethel, kept her classmates supplied with pencils from her father's store. She made daily trips to the store for pencils for her friends to use.

The owner paid $20 for the property where he built his first general store. This school was taught a five months out of the year, from July to November. It was the first school other than the classes taught a few months in the court house on Main Street, just after the Civil War.

School In Church>

In 1880 a few classes were taught in the Methodist Church on Clover Street until the building burned. It was rebuilt on First Street across from the Post Office.

Miss Delora B. Osborn taught the smaller children on the first floor of the Masonic building. Some of her pupils were Ethel Green Smith, Mattie Kelly Thacker, Georgia Howard Jones, Roxie Blackburn Bonner, Lizzie Skidmore Farmer, Mary Ward, Ora Cornett Cawood, Regina Hensley, Lee and George Ward, Claud Cornett, Lora Howard, Maggie G. Hoskins, Lawrence and Lloyd Gregory, Frank Backburn and Green Smith.

The older children were taught upstairs by Miss McCarthy and Mr. Ragen. Some of this group is shown in the picture. An organ was sent to Harlan by a Presbyterian group for the use of the school.

"I vividly remember her sitting there on the stool playing for hours and hours and teaching us songs," one of her pupils said.

The Masons held heir meetings at night on the second floor. This building was used while the Presbyterian Academy was under construction. There were four large rooms in the Academsy building.

W.C. Clemons was the first professor of the school. The three teachers moved from the Masonic building with their students when the school was completed. Miss Eva Wilmer was added to the staff.

A year or two of college marked a teacher off as highly educated man. It would have been pretty hard to find a dozen high school graduates in the average county, not only Harlan. Several of the group who went in the Masonic building finished high school in the Presbyterian Academy. A few of them went on to college.

In the by-gone days, it was fashionable to regard the teacher as a plaster saint. Some of them were regarded as lofty and a little bit fenced in. Miss Osborn and Miss Wilmer were two of the best loved teachers. To the children, they were heaven sent and were a great influence upon them.

One winter day, a group of the younger folk went to a party at the B.M. Baker home on the Fairview Hill. The river was frozen solid enough to drive a wagon across and the group skated on the ice, otherwise they would have had to cross in a boat or a horse.

Holes Cut In Ice

While they were at the party someone who probably wasn't invited, cut holes in the ice and left the chunks in place so they wouldn't notice as the young people came back over from the party.

When it was over they came running down the bank and Lee Creech "lunged" into a hole the first thing. Of course it was a joke, but not so funny to the victim.

picture...AN-EARLY GRADUATING CLASS---One of the first classes to graduate fron the Presybterian Academy on Clover street is shown here. Front row, left to right, Pearl English, Amelia Howard Carter; second row, Alice Jones Cox, Mae Rice, Nannie Smith Howard; top row,left, Johnathan Day and Turner Howard, Johnathan Day studied for the ministry in New York. Turner Howard, engineer, represented one of the largest land companies in the State of Kentucky, located in Perry Country.