A Nostalgic Visit to McHenry

I'm participating in a science workshop out at Georgia Highlands this week. We finished up a little early and I had McHenry on my mind so I stopped by to take a walk and a few pics. This is the front of the current main building. They've put a huge roof on it since "my day", but I left something that's still there. My students and I planted thirty red maples the first year around the "new" building. Two remain, as far as I can figure it. The one at the far right was well back from the road when it was planted, believe it or not. I hope we don't lose it when someone decides it's a driving hazard!

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Tony Pope
I was there today from about noon-3pm. What time did you take these? The "big" tree may be the largest left. There was a pretty apple tree back near the kitchen that disappeared a few years back. We had talked one time about planting some to line the driveway around the school.

Terrell
I was there about 3:45-4:15 or so.

The Dramatic Club tablet used to be part of the stone column whose base is still visible near the road. Now its in a brick column farther from the road.

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Tony Pope
I think this is one of the remaining "Pearly Gate" columns.

Tony Pope
Terrell, I can't figure out how to link from the McHenry site over to the pictures I just added from the 1900s-1970s.

Terrell Shaw
There are two ways:
1. Scroll down the McHenry group page to the photos. Click "add photos". A box should appear showing your Facebook albums. Choose the correct one and click on it. Click on each pic you want to add to the McH group (or choose "select all"). Then click the blue bar that says: "Add Selected Photos". It may take a little while for them to be added.
2. Open your post that has the pictures. Copy the url from the address bar at the top of the page. Open the Mchenry group page. Scroll down the the "links" box. Paste that address you copied into the "Post a link" field and click "Post".

 

One of the civic clubs, I think the Optiomists built our "recycled playground". The kids loved the tire climbing wall that is gone now. All that's left are these five tractor tires that I'll bet still get a lot of traffic from primary hands and feet.

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Wesley Morrison
I kissed a girl inside the big blue one while in the second grade. It was my first. Mrs. Moses would have killed me. Ha ha ha! Great memories. Thanks for posting.

The swings, I think, date to "my day" and the yellow jungle gym on the far right. They must have nearly doubled the classrooms with the two big additions at the back.

I wonder if the graffiti "artist" was commemorating the first principal of the 1973 building, A.J. Frost?

The gym is the same tha was there in 1971. A prvious one stood between this one and the old main building on the hill. I never saw that one.

If you had stood in the door of the gym in 1971 and taken an identical shot, you would see no wall but, instead, a steep slope with a long set of concrete steps leading up to the driveway. Across the drive you would see the left side of the main building. At the rear would be the windows to my room. You might see shelves through the windows of the library where Mrs. Burge ruled. And a couple of other rooms toward the front. On the far left of the shot would stand the small white frame house where several teachers had lived previously, but which was now home to the janitors, Earl and Nellie Hill. That house is still there but not visible in the under/overgrowth.

At the right is another of those red maples. Like 28 others it was mowed down by the county schools lawn mowers (grrrrrr!) but somehow it kept shooting back up until it managed to get enough growth to be unmowable. The one we managed to really save is at the front, directly beyond my Toyota.

Looking up the main drive from the gate. The ruins of the main building are under all the greenery to the right. The Hill's house is in the very center of this shot. A corner of it is just barely visible.

Mrs. Packer's domain was this building, the lunchroom. She loved those "commodities" that the federal government sent out: real butter, lots of flour, etc. And she knew what to do with them! Wonderful rolls, especially cinnamon rolls. And cobbler!! Oh, my!!!

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Lester Brookshire
Mrs. Packer could cook like no one else! She always gave me extra!

This shot is not exactly the shot at the top of the main page, but close. Behind all this is the lunchroom, to the left< the long steps, and the crumbling main building of McHenry School that was abandoned as a school in 1973. I think it was used by the county maintenance department for several years after that. Now it has been allowed to just fall in.