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Remembering the Rankin School Desk

OCTOBER 6, 1863

We are pleased to learn from the Indianapolis Journal the “Rankin’s School Desk”, the invention of our fellow-citizen, Mr. James S. Rankin, has been adopted at Kokomo, Aurora, New Albany, and Greensburg. Also, they are in use in Indianapolis, at Louisville, Ky., Chicago, Illinois, and in a large number of prominent schools. Their convenience and cheapness recommend them. The beautiful specimen exhibited in Mechanic’s Hall, at the late State Fair, received the recommendation of the first premium, and the warmest encomiums of the Committee.

*NOTE: James S. Rankin died in 1897 and at that time the Madison Courier stated, “Professor James S. Rankin, who over forty years ago was Principal of the Lower Seminary, and later, for several years was principal of the Seymour public schools, died at the age of seventy-nine at Bedford, N. Y. last week. From Seymour he went to Minneapolis, Minn., where he was both county and city super-intendent of schools, and later founded a co-operative colony at Bay Lake, Minn. He was the last but one of his father’s family of fifteen. There are gray-haired men in this office today, and others in the city, who were his pupils in the long ago. He was a brother of the late William Rankin of Hanover.