[Photo]     STEVE HANKEN: The Monticello High School was recently torn down. The building was completed in 1878 at a total cost of $20,000. Water was piped into the building in 1881 and in 1882 a furnace was added. Would have seemed to me that you would have got the furnace in first so your pipes wouldn't freeze, but what do I know?
[space]They discovered a bas relief in one of the upper rooms that was a real work of art. It was a plaster relief of a panel of the Iowa Soldiers Memorial (Civil War) that was done with permission from the artist. One of Monticello's Civil War soldiers was used as a model for one of the soldiers pictured. (Farwell I believe was his name). The relief was saved, but the building is now gone.
[space]When I was in High School it was the Masonic Temple and we had hot lunch in the lower portion of the building. The High School that I went to was built in the late 1920's and now it is the middle school. The good people of Monticello Community have spent their hard earned money and built a new high school across from the Monticello cemetery along Hwy. 38.
[space]There is a very impressive alumni association at Monticello, and they have written a book that details all the teachers, staff, students from each graduating class and a general history of the changes in the school itself. They usually sell the book at the annual Alumni Banquet that honors each class in their ten, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, fourty, fifty and sixty post graduation years.

There are more Jones county school post cards and photos at the Schools Page.