Timeline of Education Milestones
1877: The settlers of Bunkerville moved onto the site called Settler’s Point Sunday, January 7, 1877. After a ceremony dedicating the land, the settlers unloaded their wagons and erected a wooden shanty to be used as a communal storage shed and a classroom for Bunkerville’s first school.Charles Hoth was appointed the teacher for the older children December, 1877, Myron Abbott moved to the settlement and was appointed as teacher for adults and older children.
1878: In January, 1879, the settlers moved from Settler’s Point to the townsite of Bunkerville. They designated a town square to hold a school and a church. This area today is the site of the Thomas Dudley Leavitt, Jr. Park.
1879: March 25, 1879, the Bunkerville School District was officially created and recorded on the records of Lincoln County, Nevada. Charles F.A. Hoth became the district’s first teacher.
1881: The first school on the Town Square was called the “Flag School”. This simply was walls of cotton wood poles and a roof of tullies or Cat Tails gathered off the banks of the river and tied in bundles and laid on the roof two layers thick and covered with dirt to keep the rain and sun off the students.
1882: The new settlement of Mesquite formed the Mesquite School District #12. It was divided from the Bunkerville School District. In Bunkerville, George Whitney was appointed as teacher of the Bunkerville School.
1885: A new school building made of lumber replaced the Flag School. However, A storm came through and blew down the building before the roof was attached. School was then held in private homes until the building could be replaced. The replace school was called “The Old Rock School”. This new building was called The Old Rock School House. Students attended this school until it burned down in 1917.
1885: Martha Cragen Cox taught school in the Littlefield rock school located on the first bench above the river. A rock church stood on the second bench.
1890: The people of Bunkerville erected a 100’ X 75’ rock building to be used as a church and for school. Martha Cragan Cox, the first certified teacher by the State of Nevada in the Bunkerville school. Some school overflow classes were held in this new Rock Church.
1894: A group of people from Bunkerville moved over to the abandoned town of Mesquite to rebuild the town and farms. Charles Hardy built the first home in the new settlement and his wife, Emma Lorena Leavitt Hardy was appointed as the new schoolteacher. Classes were held in the Hardy one room home.
1897: John Hancock purchases a 16 X 16 tent. The school was moved from private homes into this tent. Martha Cragen Cox was teacher.
1904: Martin L. McCalister became Principal of the Mesquite Nevada School District. Annie Syphus was the only other teacher. At this time Mesquite’s school was held in a large tent purchased by John Hancock.
1906: A new cement building was completed in the Bunkerville Town Square to replace the destroyed lumber building. The people of Bunkerville bonded themselves $3,500.00 to construct this new building. With the help of a $300.00 personal grant from Nevada’s US Senator Knewlands, the new building was completed. It housed grades 1 – 8. However, the people wanted high school grades added also, so grades 9 and 10 were squeezed into the building. The School Board hired two new teachers, A.L. Kelley and E.S Romney. A.L. Kelley named Principal of Virgin High School.
1909: Clark County was organized and divided from Lincoln County.
1911: Bunkerville High School opens. It was named Virgin High School. Paul Miner, teacher. The school’s first high school students began the tenth grade.
1913: Virgin High School graduates first class of Seniors. Principal was Edward I. Cox.
1914: Carbide gas lighting installed in Bunkerville and Mesquite schools. Bunkerville High School wins Clark County Basketball Championship.
1917: Bunkerville Rock School destroyed by fire.
1918: Virgin Valley and Moapa Valley combine schools into Educational District # 1. Bunkerville High School Principal A.L. Kelley appointed as new Superintendent of Schools. Up to this time the schools in both valleys functioned without a Superintendent of Schools and the School Boards fulfilled that function. It was at this time the schools became known as Virgin Valley Schools and Moapa Valley Schools. The creation of Educational District # ! was historic in that it side stepped the Clark County Commissioners from closing all schools in Clark County and requiring all county students to attend school in Las Vegas, which they threatened to do by withholding State Educational monies. The people in Virgin Valley and the Moapa Valley wanted control over students in their own local schools. Under the direction of Bunkerville High School Principal, E.L. Kelley, the school boards in both valleys agreed to combine in their own school district.
1919: LeRoy Hafen becomes Principal of Virgin High School.
1920: Virgin Valley High School creates a post high graduate school. This school was called a Normal School. Classes were taught in the Rock Church.With this extra year of training student could teach school in Nevada, but they had to finish schooling and obtain full college credits within a given time.
1927: Scarlet Fever and Measles epidemic closes all church and school classes.
1928: Edgar Miner, Principal of Virgin Valley High School becomes Superintendent of Educational District # 1.
1930: Water well drilled at Mesquite Elementary School. Water not fit to drink but usable as bathroom water. Edith Knight appointed teacher at the school at Mormon Wells, a small community of families living about eight miles up the creek from Beaver Dam, Arizona.
1933: First culinary water system in Bunkerville, created by Thomas Dudley Leavitt and the Educational District #. It provided culinary water to Bunkerville High School and Thomas Dudley Leavitt’s homes. This primitive system consisted of a water wheel in the irrigation canal which put water into a holding tank. A diesel pump was used to pump the water to the tank on the hill above town and the water used gravity to flow to the homes and school.
1935: Paul Thurston, of Mesquite, becomes Superintendent of Educational District # 1. Virgin Valley Schools approved the 6 – 6 plan. First six grades in the Mesquite Elementary School and the second six grades in the Bunkerville High School. This plan was implemented in 1939.
1937: Selena Hafen Leavitt becomes Clerk of Educational District # One.
1939: Electricity comes to Virgin Valley on May 13th.
1941: Paul Thurston, Superintendent of Schools, Austin Hunt, principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1942: Schools in Virgin Valley join the “hot lunch” program.
1943: Seymore P. Fish, Superintendent of School. Austin Hunt, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1946: Seymore P. Fish, Superintendent of Schools. Glen B. Miner, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1947: Seymore P. Fish, Superintendent of Schools. Eugene Vanderhoeven, principal of Virgin Vallely High School.
1948: Seymore P. Fish, Superintendent of Schools. E.J. Rice, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1949: Seymore P. Fish, Superintendent of Schools. W. Deloy Smith, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1951: Seymore P. Fish, Superintendent of Schools. Andrew Mitchell, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1955: Seymore P. Fish, Superintendent of Schools. Harold George, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1956: Clark County School District organized. R. Guild Gray Superintendent.
1957: Due to Nevada State Law, all schools in Clark County are combined Into the Clark County School District. This law required only one School District per County.
1958: R. Guild Gray, Superintendent of Clark County School District, Seymore P. Fish, Assistant Superintendent of Schools over old Educational District Number one schools. Harold George, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1959: Virgin Valley High School, grades 7 – 12, closes in Bunkerville and reopens in Mesquite as Virgin Valley Schools, K – 12. R. Guild Gray, Superintendent of Schools. Seymore P. Fish, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1961: R. Guild Gray, Superintendent of Schools. Blaine W. Allen, Principal of Virgin Valley High School.
1991: Virgin Valley High School, grades 9 – 12, moves into new buildings on the Linge Hill.
1992 to Present Day: A new Middle School, and two new Elementary Schools have been opened in the Valley. Joseph L. Bowler Elementary in Bunkerville, Charles A. Hughes Middle School in Mesquite and the Mesquite Elementary School.