MIDLAND SCHOOL 1895-1949 was first called MIDWAY ACADEMY because it was midway between the two schools which it consolidated, GRAVEL HILL and CAMPGROUND. It was located on the south side of the Midland-U.S. 231 Highway east of Midland, then called Middleton, and on the site of the present Baptist Church. On July 13, 1895, G. F. Tucker and wife Sally G. sold two acres of land for a school.
The first building consisted of two large rooms, side by side, one for primary and one for upper grades. On the front was a small room for coats and a half porch.
Teachers were Mack Loftin, who left during the first year, Jim Webb from Bell Buckle, and Hattie Bryant.
Eunice Williams Holden, born October 21, 1889, started to school the first day it opened. In the second grade she sat with Gladys Royal Young who became the mother of the actress Loretta Young.
The school burned before a picture of it could be made.
The second building of MIDWAY ACADEMY in 1896 or 1897 was on the same site. This building with four gables and high windows had a vestibule at the center front with a boys’ coatroom on one side and a girls’ coatroom on the other. A large room for upper grades then ran the full length of the front. Behind it was a small music room on the left and a larger primary room on the right which opened to a small side porch.
Teachers remembered in the second building were Jim Webb and Mary Haynes in 1896 or 1897, Ollie Mae Howe and Mr. Hudson in 1898, Sam Arnett in 1902. In 1904, W. R. Shelton was principal with Miss Daisy Williams as assistant. J. W. Jamison taught three years in the late nineteenth century.
Lena Chick and Clarence Butts taught in 1905; and Ellen Brown Mullins and Robbie Lee Poplin, in 1914. Alice Rooker, Mr. Martin, Mr. Thomas, Hattie Bryant, and Mary Haynes were teachers in the early 1900’s. Later teachers were Leoma Smotherman, Nellie Malone Parsley, Myrtle Ogles Robinson, Mary Frank Auberry, Allie Lee Pearcy, Mary Kelton Carter, Lena Colby, Clarence Elkins, Nell Hale Alexander, Mary Lou Gordon Davidson, Katie Wheelhouse Holt , Katherine Beasley, Grace Whitworth, Annie T. Crowell, Mary Eastman Smith, Mary Kelton, Bess Pate Williams, Myra Morris, Mrs. George Joyce, Lena Gilbert Young, Lena Taylor Alsup, and Myrtle Wilson. There were two teachers until 1946 when grades 7 and 8 went to FOSTERVILLE.
School officials in 1904 were W. B. Holden, James Rowland, and J. M. Williams.
The school first operated from late July until about Thanksgiving, a four-month fall term and then a short spring term. Tuition was charged.
In 1949 the building was sold for $625 and the money was
used for the new MIDLAND SCHOOL.