Local

The final plan adopted by the Colorado Independent Congressional Redistrict Commission creates an eighth congressional district.

Members of the Fairfield eighth grade class are pictured in 1949. They include Paul Garretson, Ruby Hadeen, Harold Sparhawk, JoDell Roos and Robert Stansbury. In the 1880s, the first Fairfield school was in a granary on Edward Anderson’s farm. His teenage daughter was the teacher at the school. A sod schoolhouse was built in 1888, and later another schoolhouse was built northeast of the first school. In 1900, a 20-by-30-foot frame building was constructed and used for 16 years, when it was voted to make a joint district with Phillips and Sedgwick counties and to build a two-room schoolhouse. Another addition was built in 1925 that included three elementary classrooms upstairs, a two-year high school, an auditorium and a teachers’ apartment in the basement. Restrooms were installed in 1952, and a new gym was built east of the schoolhouse in 1954. The district voted to close the school in 1959 and transport students in first through fifth grade to Haxtun, where students in sixth through 12th grade were already attending school. — Source: Phillips County Museum