DILTON SCHOOL 1898-1942 was the relocation of the old OAKLAND ACADEMY to a site .3 of a mile east of the Dilton store on the north side of the Bradyville pike. On June 7, 1913, J. T. Bivins and wife Belle, D. M. Bivins and wife Myrtle, and W. C. Bivins deeded the .25 acre of school property to the Rutherford County Board of Education. Later, on August 20, 1927, Jim Jones and wife sold .75 acre for the school.
The white weatherboarded schoolhouse contained two rooms, a big room and a little room. When the building began to lean in the 1920’s, cedar poles were used to prop it up. In about 1927 the building was torn down and was replaced on the same site. The new school was also a weatherboarded building painted white. The two classrooms, one behind the other, had large cloak rooms and outside doors. A third room
on the right, opening on the front porch, was originally a work room or reading room but, in time, became a kitchen and lunchroom area. A well with a pump was in the front yard.
Teachers included: Ara B. Campbell Sloan, Asa Nesbitt, Lesly Arnette, 1911, John Bivins, 1905, Weck Mankins, 1906, J. Dallas Jacobs, Ellen Brown, Lela Osborne Mullins, Mattie Lowe Hall McFarlin, Vera Gilley Hernandez, Minnie Barnes, Lavada Bowling, Blanche Howland Jacobs, Charlie Tolbert, Susie Ashley, Mary Knott, Tom Gregory, Elizabeth Puckett Carter, Ruby Overall Lynch, Anna Bell Becton Roberts, Winnie Moody, Zella Potts, Virginia Bock Overall, Pauline Jennings Wood, Alice Hill Craddock, Grady Biggers White, Christine Donnell, Frank White, Frank Robinson, Herman Fox, Bessie Puckett, Charlie Bright Brandon Smith, and Carl Brown.
In 1942 the school closed and the children were bussed to consolidated schools in Murfreesboro.
The Rutherford County School Commission sold the DILTON SCHOOL property in a deed signed October 14, 1952, to W. H. Arnett and wife. Only the well and the foundation of the school remain.
SOURCES: Deed Book 55, p. 506; Book 114, p. 322; Book 71, p. 425. *Rebecca Smith, History of Dilton RCHS, Summer 1977 p. 73. Letter, dated Feb. 26, 1982, from George E. Weeks, student 1905-1907. Interview, July 16, 1982, with Bessie Gilley Cooper., *Jessie Belle Arnette Mann, daughter of *James Lesly Arnette. *Charlie Bright Brandon Smith, who taught with *Bessje Puckett.