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Bird Creek School: If you write your name on the board in this abandoned school, it will disappear

4 min read

Bird Creek is a two-room school built by the WPA, Works Progress Administration, which made a significant impact on Oklahoma with approximately 119,000 people employed between 1935 and 1937, the building or improving of 651,000 miles of roads, as well as the erection or improvement of 125,110 buildings.
Its construction started in 1938, was completed in 1939, and It was a small country school for District 17 that got its name from the nearby Bird Creek, that runs throughout Osage County.
At the time it was considered one of the most modern and advanced schools of its kind in the state.
From the instruction that students received there to the actual building itself, it was way ahead of its time, as it introduced a modern facility with advanced instructional teachings, and by providing job opportunities to some of the impoverished workmen in the area.
It served the small rural towns around it, but not much is known about the school or its students.
It closed sometime in the 1960s, it was used as a community center for a while and was later abandoned.
Some local sources spoke of an outdoor living camp for students in the district that would be held at the Bird Creek School where students would live off the land and study wildlife, water conservation and pollution.
It seems that the current owners acquired it from a trade by giving up dirt for the nearby landfill, and in return they were given the school which their mother happened to be a former student.

The old abandoned Bird Creek School is now a haunted gem in the middle of nowhere in Osage County. It slowly crumbles, doors stay wide open and glass from the broken windows litters the floor, while graffiti marks the walls.
It’s said that if you enter the school and write your name on the blackboard, the next time you come back your name will have been scratched off by the ghosts that linger there.
There have also been accounts of ghost hunters seeing actual ghosts, shadow figures, voices, and other apparitions both inside and around the school property.
According to some ghosts enthusiasts, you can clearly hear the evidence of hauntings, with a wooden chair that, for example, scrapes along the floor, while another chair is dragged, and an unknown voice who insists, “I’m sitting here.”

Local newspapers describe also mayhem and murder near the school: it seems that a man went mad and drove his car over the Bird Creek Bridge with his wife and two children.
They all drowned in the cold water below, but people report seeing the mother’s piercing green eyes and hearing screaming children if they cross the bridge at midnight.
Moreover legends say villagers accused a local woman of witchcraft and then drowned her in the creek.
In any case Osage County has a long history of trials and tribulations. Locals barely survived the so-called “trail of tears” when the US government forced the march from Kansas to the Oklahoma Osage Reservation. Only 3000 Osage arrived alive, five percent of those began the journey.
Then, when oil was discovered on the land in the 1920s, many Osage men were murdered.
Some by gunshot, others by poison and mysterious illnesses.
The oil boom had come to the nearby Pawkuska bringing prosperity to the Osage families whose children attended the Bird Creek School but, I nstead of bringing wealth and security, greed and terror followed.
Today, the casino industry thrives on the reservation perhaps changing the terrible history of the area.

It’s not easy to find the Bird Creek School, located behind Lake Bluestem as, in the summer, the numerous trees hide the building.
The current owner, who could be such a Blanch Brasses lives on the property according to some reports. But this can’t be confirmed as I didn’t find recent and verified informations.
If you go, it is your responsibility to acquire permission, and do not trespass without authorisation.

Images from web – Google Research

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