Coates Creek School, Glade Park, Colorado 1910-1915 38.951410 -108.976219 Glade Park Mesa Colorado USA https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B057'05.1%22N+108%C2%B058'34.4%22W/@38.951411,-108.9767662,170m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m13!1 Coates Creek School location The first Coates Creek School was located about 12 miles west of the Glade Park Store. It was a small, one room cabin structure built sometime between 1910 and 1915. The second, larger school was built in late 1916 in preparation for the winter. It was located a quarter mile from the location of the previous school, on a ridge near the home of Herman and Edna Rowe. Oral history interviewee James Brouse confirms that the school building was first located nearer the Glade Park store, in a log cabin with a dirt roof. The building was torn down and rebuilt by Ellwood Brouse (father of James Brouse) and others on what locals called the Divide Ridge. Later, families with children seemed to live farther west, and so the school was moved again, this time to the banks of Coates Creek, where a wall was taken out and the building made larger. Local rancher Ellwood Brouse built a cabin on his homestead where Eva (Wood) Leslie and the school’s other first teachers stayed. Eventually, a teacherage was built on the school grounds. At certain times, twenty or thirty children might attend the school. At other times, it was fewer than 10. According to Dorothy (Gordon) Mahoney, a resident of Glade Park, it taught children up to 8th Grade. Many children lived with relatives in Grand Junction after 8th grade in order to attend high school. According to Ellen Teresa (Morse) Brouse, the school had no running water in the 1940’s. Her brother-in-law was on the school board and arranged for a gravel bed to be made for a cistern, which filtered water from the creek. A pump was then put inside the schoolhouse. The school held many dances and community events over the years. When Glade Park District 41 was absorbed by Mesa County Valley School District 51 in 1951, a trailer-classroom was used in the log school’s stead, but the old school building continued use as a community center. At that time, it was one of two schools left in Glade Park, along with the Little Dolores School. Older students were bused to Fruita for school from the Glade Park Store from 1951 to 1971. Glade Park public school students now attend Grand Valley schools. In 1993, the old building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. As of 2001, the old metal swing set from 1919 still stood next to the school. *Some information for this entry came from “In the Beginning… A History of the Districts and Schools that became Mesa County Valley School District Number 51” by Albert and Terry LaSalle. *Above photograph of first Coates Creek School taken by Alma Martin in 1915. yes yes