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Before the Talawanda consolidation in 1956, Milford Twp. consisted of three high schools: Somerville, Collinsville and Darrtown.

Each school possessed its own unique qualities. Some parents in Milford Twp. attempted to stop the abolishment of their district, but they did not secure enough signatures.

Somerville High School was constructed in 1917 and operated for 37 years. However, the school only served teenagers until 1934, when the last senior class of eight people graduated. From there, high school students living in Somerville attended Stewart or McGuffey schools in Oxford.

In Collinsville, Robert Todd secured a charter for a high school around 1906. The era was much different than landscape today.

At the time, horses and buggies were used to transport students to and from school. As the high school began to grow, two rooms were added at a cost of $7,000 in 1914. During this year, Center, Greenbriar and Taylor schools consolidated with Collinsville adding more students.

The following year in 1915, parents took a more active role in the school. They established a mothers club where moms took turns cooking lunches. The cost a student paid for a meal was 10 cents.

Ten years later in December, the school experienced a frightening event. More than 100 children barely escaped a fire caused by an overheated furnace. A 13-year-old boy discovered the fire while playing outside.

After this traumatic event, students used the basement of the Collinsville Presbyterian Church as the cafeteria, and classes were held in buildings over local stores.

In Darrtown, the high school was built in 1926. One famous major leaguer got his start at there. Former Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Walter "Smokey" Alston was a student at Darrtown High School. Alston was also a standout athlete at the high school. In 1929 he scored 26 points in a basketball game against Hanover. Alston's team won the game 50-6.

The Darrtown alum went on to manage the Dodgers for 22 years before returning home. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1983.

One Darrtown resident explained her feelings about the town in a graduation speech from 1917.

"You have now reached the time when you must sever the ties which have bound you to this school," Rosabelle Snavely said, "and following the old custom our class must bid you a final farewell. Soon you will leave this familiar old building and the places you have been accustomed to will be left to others."