Bon Air School

Bon Air School was first located in Old Bon Air (Old Town), on the western side of Bon Air Mountain about one hundred feet below the tableland.  It was just east of Sunset Rock near the mouth of “Old Number One” mine in the 14th Civil District.

Old Number One was the first drift mine in the area and it opened in 1888.  Other mines opened up northeast of the first one.  Around 1891, the ground under most of the town buildings began to slide down the mountain and Bon Air was relocated on the tableland overlooking the mine entrances.  Following the move the first town was known as “Old Town”.  The school was located on “Front” Street in the new Bon Air near the present day Bon Air Methodist Church on Highway 70 East.  The two- story board –and-batten structure contained one large room on each floor; smaller rooms were attached to the back and side of the lower level.  Red paint covered the outside walls, and a small bell tower perched on the shingle roof.

Bon Air School opened about 1888.  The school was financed by the Bon Air Coal and Iron Company as a nine-month school as long as the company was in operation.    At one time the school was financed by both the Bon Air Coal and Iron Company and the White County Board of Education.  When the mines closed the school was purchased for $300 by the White County Board of Education from the Tennessee Products Corporation on January 11, 1941.

Bon Air School became part of the new school, BonDeCroft, in 1954.

Bon Air School teachers included Billie Powell Bohannon – Lydia Bohannon – Eva Bradley – Etta Brady – Professor J. E. Brandon – Cecil Welch Chittick – Mary Ann Cooper – Herman Cowden – M. M. Cowden – William (Bill) Cowden – Pearl Cowden Dodson – Beecher Frasier – Mrs. Harm – Frances Hennessee – Hayden Higgenbottom – Georgia Hoge – Frances Mitchell Marriott Horn – Rebecca Turner Jenkins – Wallace Lamb – Mary Langston – D. L. Lansden – Edgar Loftis – Mrs. D. C. McPeak – Frances Brown Owen – Delena Rascoe Short – William Everett Short – Rose Sherrell Stewart – Mattie Pearl Stone – Eva Travis – Roberta Lewis Warren and Beulah Erwin Welch. 

Family names of Bon Air School families and students include:

Olexy, Rozell, Snodgrass, Bryant, Rice, Prater, Broom, McBride, Davis, Dodson, Fields, Cowden, Welch, Cakes, Rogers, McKay, Ledford, Cooley, Banks, Scott, Meadows, Shell, Clemons, Waters, Moore, Gaines, and Pack.