Redfield High School - Pheasant Yearbook (Redfield, SD)

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HISTORY OF THE ATHOL COMMUNITY When my grandparents carne to South Dakota in 1885, Athol was a boomtown. It consisted of two big hotels, one was where the hall was before it burned, a hardware store, a saloon post office harness shop, two livery barns one was where Lloyd Kegler built his house, a lumber yard that was run by Frank Booth's father two elevators, a drugstore two general stores a shoe shop a blacksmith shop, a brewery where Roy Brown now lives, and a barber shop The population is estirnated to have been five thousand people The town was supposed to have been built a mile north of where :lt now stands and it was called Myrtle City because the first baby born in the settlement was named Myrtle It got its name Athol from an English train conductor who first called it that It was the name of a famous armor used by a House of Lords In England., The name stuck and finally it was changed to Athol It was three years after my grandparents came to South Dakota that they had the blizzard of '88 It was the severest ever experienced in this area The storm struck Athol about nine o clock on the morning January twelfth 1888 The pupils had just arrived at school It was a blinding blizzard until three o clock the next morning A teacher, Miss Stansfield who taught the Percival school north of here was frozen to death as she tried to get to Percivals all night They turned their tearn loose tipped the sled upside-down and crawled under it Their fingers and toes were frozen but otherwise they were unhurt Mrs Reed s sister in law and a little boy were caught in a school house west of here They didn t have any fuel but she put a pair of gloves on hirn and kept hirn walking all night Her hands were slightly frozen but fortunately there were no other injuries My grandfather Galvin, and his brother were caught in the blizzard but managed to reach home safely Some of the other early settlers were my grandmother and her brother, John O Connor several Wllhelms, Schwenns, Alvin Grover, Dan McDole who kept a livery barn and hotel Robert and Frank Twiss, and Corbin Ingalls Drs Wood and Edward were also early settlers The first school had only ten grades in it The first teacher was Lotty Witheral who was sixteen years old There was no high school the first few years In 1911 the present school building was built Slnce the boom, the town has slowly disappeared until it consists of only about a fourth of what it did In the beginning there were four passenger trains each day ln tlrne the town will probably disappear altogether Francis Galvin A family who lived south of town had several young men out ln the storm

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