Howell School (Old Daniel Wertz)

The Howell public school has gone through several renovations and even moving locations due to overpopulation of the school and surrounding schools shutting down. The Howell school has been open since 1886 and changed their name to Daniel Wertz in 1922 and now the location is now called Old Daniel Wertz due to relocating in 1986 to Red Bank Road. The Howell General Baptist has since then bought the location and has torn down the building to put a parking lot and their family life center, where there is a marker to say that the school was once there.

Howell School had opened back in 1886, originally a 2-story building built with a bell tower located on the northwest corner of Delmar and Emerson. It has gone through several renovations and in 1922 renamed it to Daniel Wertz after a community service person. Daniel Wertz did several different projects around the community and held several titles. He was the President of Maley & Wertz Lumber Co., Secretary and director Hoosier cardinal corp.; Dir of Vendome & McCurdy; Directory of Amos-Thompson corp; director international steel; Directory YMCA; Chairman of Board of Central Union Bank; Active C of C and passed away in 1939.

The town of Howell is located Southwest of Evansville and had several railroad activities due to the Howell Railroad Yard. The Railroad had brought several people to the area, which had the school's population grow as well, leading to additions in 1898, 1935, and 1958. In 1986 the school had to relocate due to the closing of nearby schools, where they relocated to Red Bank Road south of Broadway where the school is located today. A little fact, the 1937 did not impact a lot of the Howell district though if we were to see another flood to this level happen again the new location would be under water.

The original spot of where the school was located was bought out by the Howell Baptist Church in 1986. For a short amount of time the school used it as a storage building. In 1990 the building was razed and today the site is a parking lot. The only indication of the Old Daniel Wertz building being there is the sidewalks leading up to the old entrances. The Howell General Baptist had also decided to build their Family Life Center on part of this ground in 1995.

Engler, Joe. “Neighborhood Schools Presentation” Vanderburgh County Historical Society, April 2014. https://www.vchshistory.org/2014/03/18/old-daniel-wertz-school/

Howell (Liberty) General Baptist Church, Universtiy of Southern Indiana Rice library, physical article, RH 029-31, 1998

Evansville Public Library, ID=61676 Browning Genealogy and Daniel Wertz, Special Collection, Online Archives , http://browning.evpl.org/

Howell School, Historic Evansville. Accessed November 28th, 2023. https://historicevansville.com/site.php?id=olddanielwertz.