Community remembers old Slaughters Elementary School after major fire

SLAUGHTERS, Ky. (WFIE) – A major fire broke out at the old Slaughters Elementary School on Wednesday.

Now community members look back on the memories made in the building after this community lost the building for the second time.

“It’s just heartbreaking to see that you had so many memories in one place that they just disappeared,” said Slaughters graduate Chelsea Hamilton.

Meanwhile, another, Amanda Coomes, shared: “It immediately brought tears to my eyes, even though it’s just a building, it has so many memories and it’s just sad to see it go.”

The building had been closed to the public since 2012, when the Webster County School District decided to rezone it.

“The reason we closed was because attendance was low,” Coomes said.

Since then it has been passed from private owner to private owner without any real vision behind it.

“It started to get sad because it started to deteriorate and it’s just disheartening because I would give anything for my kids to go there,” Coomes said.

For many Slaughters residents, attending elementary school was a rite of passage.

“They had a great basketball team, the grades here were great, they were the best teachers ever, my great aunts went here, my dad went here, my kids went here,” Gwendolyn Orange said

Now that passage has disappeared indefinitely.

“I think the community and everyone who came here found comfort in having the building that we could still see that is no longer there,” said Audra Tapp, another Slaughters graduate.

Now a devastating end to a decades-long journey of slaughter is taking place, and for this tight-knit community they hope to rebuild together.

“We don’t have an elementary school anymore, we don’t have a bank, we don’t have restaurants, and yet it’s still a community and its people look out for each other and love each other,” Tapp said.

The cause of this fire is still under investigation. We will continue to update this story over time.

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