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Contents
Foreword & Acknowledgement
Before the White Man/Coming of the
First Settlers
DeMotte Grows into a Town
Early Transportation & Farming
The First Schools
Dredging of the Grand Kankakee Marsh
Leonard Swart (Interview)
Casper Belstra (Interview)
Northern Indiana Land Company
The Halleck Telephone Company
DeMotte Mercantile Company
DeMotte Library Grows
Cheever's Garage
Eighty Years of Community Banking
Fairchild & Tanner History
Earl Schwanke Article
Keener Township Fire Department
(Art) Lageveen Looks Back
Fire Almost Destroys DeMotte in 1936
Kankakee Valley Post-News
Asparagus & Truck Farming
Businessmen's Association
Lageveen Remembers Incorporation
Belstra Remembers When...
Kankakee Valley Schools
DeMotte Elementary School
(DeMotte) Christian School
Mark L. DeMotte
Charlie Halleck
Walter Roorda, State Representative
C-SELM
Van Keppel Construction Company
Fire Destroys Main Building at Kaper's
The Hamstra Group
DeMotte Historical Society
Tysen's Family Food Center
Belstra Milling
The Fire of 1992
United Methodist Church
DeMotte Christian Church
Community Bible Church
Calvary Assembly of God
Bethel Christian Reformed Church
First Christian Reformed Church
Faith
Lutheran Church
St. Cecilia Catholic Church
United Pentecostal
First Reformed Church
American Reformed Church
DeMotte Town Court
Incorporation of DeMotte
August 10 Incorporation Hearing
September 1965 Incorporation
First Town Board Election
The First Town Board
DeMotte Town Council 1969-1997
DeMotte Town Hall
DeMotte Park Board
Wastewater Treatment Begins
DeMotte Chamber of Commerce
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The first schools
Until 1890 Keener Township and DeMotte
children were educated in one-room schools which dotted the countryside.
The first two schools were Corn School, district 1 of Keener Township,
erected in 1853, and located three miles due west of DeMotte. Tyler
School, district II, was built in 1867 and was located one mile north and
one mile east of DeMotte. There is a record of $52 being paid to Emma
Downey for her services as a school teacher at Tyler School that year.
In 1876 Center School was built one mile west of DeMotte and the District
I Corn School was abandoned and replaced with the Gleason School, also
known as 'The Morning Star'. These one-room school buildings were used not
only as schools, but by churches and as community centers to hold meetings
in by the general populace. The teachers who taught in the schools were
boarded by area families.
 In
1867-68 school term, there were 22 pupils enrolled in Keener Township
schools between the ages of six and 21. The schools were under the
jurisdiction of school examiners until 1873 when the Office of School
Examiners was discontinued and all records were turned over to the Jasper
County Superintendent of Schools. This office continued jurisdiction of
the educational needs of the students in the whole of Jasper County until
the consolidation of the northern Jasper County schools into the Kankakee
Valley School system.
By 1890, DeMotte had grown to the extent that a two-room, two-story frame
building was erected in town on the corner of what is now 9th and Halleck
Street where J & H Tire is located. The lower grades (1-3) were taught by
Essie (Fairchild) Erwin and the upper grades (4-8) were taught by Edward
O. Warren who hailed from Lawton, Oklahoma. They received salaries of
$1.50 and $1.90 per day respectively.
After the river was dredged around 1910 and the swamp land confined within
the banks of the Kankakee, the population in DeMotte and Keener Township
began to explode. The small schools no longer served the purpose they were
so aptly designed for in the simpler times of the early settlers.
In 1914 a new brick structure was constructed where the
elementary school sits today. John White owned the property where the new
school was to be built. Part of the deal included White getting the old
two-room school and the property where it sat across the street in
exchange for the land for the school. He remodeled the building into a
home for himself and his family.
A principal and three teachers comprised the staff at the new school and a
freshman class was begun. In 1918, DeMotte High School graduated its first
senior class of three girls. There was no graduating class in 1919. The
junior class the previous year had one student who had moved away. In
1920, one student was graduated.
In 1919, the district schools (one-room schools) in Keener Township were
consolidated into the Keener Township Consolidated School (DeMotte
School). There were about 300 students at this time in all of Keener
Township including DeMotte. Because of consolidation, more room was needed
and an addition to the building was made. In 1920 the high school was
commissioned.
In 1933, it was again necessary to build more classrooms. A two-room frame
building was constructed and used by the first and second grade. In the
spring of 1936 another addition was made to the building consisting of a
gymnasium, study hall and high school classrooms. The DeMotte School
enrollment that year, grades 1-12, was 335.
By 1954, it was apparent that the DeMotte School was seriously overcrowded
to the point that half-day classes were being considered. In the fall of
1954, Kenneth Zeck, president of the PTA, took the bull by the horns and
had a survey conducted as to the enrollment, future enrollment and the
capacity of each school room in comparison to minimum state requirements.
The results of this survey were presented at a meeting of the PTA in
January 1955 by the faculty members. At this meeting a committee was
appointed to choose a School Study Committee representative of the entire
township. They were: Ralph DeKock, chairman; Howard Evans - vice chairman;
Doris Zeck - secretary; Albert K. Belstra; Peter J. Walstra; Mrs. Louis
Ramp; Thomas Abbring; John H. Boezeman and Paul Stangle - ex officer.
The committee recommended both remodeling of the old building and
construction of new elementary rooms plus a gymnasium/auditorium. This
project would also require buying additional ground to comply with state
regulations.
Much to the consternation of former DeMotte High School students, this
building was totally demolished in 1984 to make way for the building that
is now DeMotte Elementary.
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