house until the mid 1950s. The school is maintained by the Cato Historical Preservation Association. Never a large town, Cato's population peaked in 1910 with 112 residents. Kellas Kellas School, built in 1873, in Newton, Harvey County, Kansas, was located at southeast 12th Street & Hillside. The small wood-frame building was moved to the Harvey County Historical Society in Newton, where it can be visited today. Extinct Schools One room schools in Kansas could not hope to compete against larger, better equipped schools in the cities. Rural one room schools had their own problems, especially the inability to retain teachers from year to year because of low pay and declining student enrollment. The automobile also made transportation possible for rural students to cities. The end of an era was at hand. With the unification of school districts, one room schools were abandoned. In many cases, the schoolhouse reverted to the property owner. Then again, the school itself might be converted into a home or auctioned off. Where the building was on farmland, farmers would burn the structure to revert the land to farm or pasture. Finally, many structures just wasted away with time and weather. Preservation There are various projects to preserve the memory of Kansas one room schools. Foremost perhaps is the Kansas One Room School House Project, a Kansas Heritage Project.. Many of the Kansas one room schools still standing are preserved and maintained by local land owners and community groups. Notes References http://www.kansasheritage.org/orsh/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110902154449/http://www.kshs.org/portal_shawnee_indian_mission http://www.ksgenweb.com/archives/1912/m3/mead_james_r.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110929033749/http://www.jocomuseum.org/docs/HP%20Articles/National%20Register/Lanesfield%20School.pdf http://kansasoneroomschools.blogspot.com/p/history.html Hunting and Trading on the Great Plains,1859-1875. By James R. Mead, edited by Schuyler Jones and introduction by Ignace Mead Jones. Closed Schools in Kansas (1942) http://cdm16884.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16884coll8/id/780/rec/1 Education in Kansas Defunct schools in Kansas 1800s architecture in the United States