Mystery Place:Former Dunham School merged with Elkhorn School District
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The former Dunham School was located at the west end of the intersection of County Highway O and Dunham School Road in the town of Sugar Creek, Section 29. The schoolhouse no longer exists; there is a new home in its place.
District 9 was formed in 1847 and a wood schoolhouse was built at this location. Their second building was erected in 1867 of brick. It was 28-by-22-by-12 feet with a 12-by-12-foot chimney and 122 square feet of blackboard.
Lillian Wilear was the teacher from 1909 until 1913. Her salary during the four years she taught was $40 per month. The first year she taught 21 students. The next three years she taught 15 children.
This district installed a telephone at the school in 1958. On July 20, 1961, the district attached to the Elkhorn Area School District. The schoolhouse was demolished. For several years there was only a heap of rubble at this location. There is now a private home on the site at the intersection of County O and Dunham School Road.
The 1857 plat map shows H.B. Dunham owning 80 acres in this location. C.J. Moore owned property in which the later plat books placed the school. This was just south of that intersection.
The 1873 plat book indicates that Dunham still owned the property just to the north of that intersection on the west side of County O. The property to the south was now owned by L.D. Flitcroft. The only reference I could find in Beckwith's History of Walworth County was Lorenzo D. Flitcroft served in Company D, Forty-Fourth Infantry during the Civil War.
Flitcroft continued to own this property through the 1907 plat book. Then it went to a variety of owners, including Thos. Newman, O.R. Brooks, J. Potter and H. & J. Sterken.