CHENEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT #268 history

The town, in the spot formerly known as Willow Springs, sprang up almost instantly in 1880 when word leaked out that the Northern Pacific Railroad planned a key depot stop there.

On April 3, 1882, the Benjamin P. Cheney Academy opened its doors to students from the elementary grades up to the eighth or ninth grade.

The town was started in August, 1883, when the railroad reached western Sedgwick County, and the entire town of Marshall moved to Cheney.

Cheney’s boosters, still smarting from the loss of the Spokane County seat to the city of Spokane Falls in 1886, immediately mounted a campaign to land one of the three schools.

He spent a year preparing for entrance to Yale at Norwich Free Academy and graduated from the New Haven college with a BA degree in 1888.

One, called the Jewett ranch school, was on a part of the famous Jewett ranch south of Cheney and was already integrated in the 1890’s.

A two-story addition to the original academy building caught fire on August 27, 1891.

In 1894 when the first senior class received their diplomas, there were six graduates.

A new Normal School building, complete with central clock tower, was finished in 1896, yet like nearly everything else in the college’s early history, it was surrounded by controversy.

In the fall of 1897, the State Normal School at Cheney failed to open, leaving the hilltop campus “deserted except for the birds and squirrels,” in the words of Dryden.

Once again, the townspeople of Cheney came to the rescue by pledging money to re-open the school in the fall of 1898.

When he came to Cheney to make the school’s commencement address on June 22, 1899, he conceded, somewhat reluctantly, that the State Normal School at Cheney would be, from that point on, a “permanent fixture.”

In 1902, Cheney Bros. built a new and up-to-date high school building.

With the high school well established by 1905, Verplanck was made superintendent of the South Manchester Public School System.

Auto owners in 1909 formed the Cheney Auto Club and spent much time driving over the area.

Early on April 24, 1912, a fire of unknown origin started in the school’s main building.

The nearby Training School – a model school where student teachers from the Normal School taught Cheney children – was pressed into service as the new main building until a grand new administration building was completed in 1915.

By 1922, the Normal School had an enrollment of 1,764.

Started in 1930, this fair is considered one of the best in Kansas with colorful parades, exhibits of fine livestock, garden and farm crops, flowers, baking, canning, handiwork, and art.

In 1932, when the schools of the town were consolidated, he was made first superintendent of schools in Manchester.

In 1933 it won the right to grant Bachelor of Arts in education degrees, instead of only teaching certificates.

In 1937, the name of the school was officially changed to the Eastern Washington College of Education, which provided a boost in prestige.

The Cheney district covered a little over 12 sections of land until the school reorganization era of 1946.

A new state Degree Bill, passed in 1947, transformed all of the state's colleges of education into full-fledged liberal arts colleges, which began to grant degrees in a wide range of subjects.

In 1961, the name was officially changed to Eastern Washington State College.

The following historical information was taken from The Small Town and Its Future by Floyd R. Souders published in The Kansas Historical Quarterly Spring 1969.