Keenes High School

Keenes (population 99) is located southeastern Illinois in the southwestern portion of Wayne County. Illinois Route 15 is the main roadway to and from Keenes. County Highway 13 also takes you to and from town. The Norfolk Southern Railroad passes through Keenes as well. According to Mapquest (www.mapquest.com) Keenes is about four blocks from east to west and four blocks from south to north.

The following information was found at the web address of http://archive.org/stream/historyofwaynecl00chic#page/250/mode/2up . Keenes was at first called Keen Station as it was established along an early railroad line of the area.

“Keen Station is a small town situated on the Air Line three miles west of Wayne City, and consists of two general stores, and one grocery store. It has a good school and a substantial church building is being erected by the Missionary Baptists. A grist mill was put up there in 1881, and there are also two saw mills at this place.”

We are uncertain of when, but at some point the name of the village was changed from Keen Station to Keenes. This is currently the extent of the information we have regarding the village of Keenes.

We know very little about the history of Keenes High School. We were made aware of the fact that the town supported a high school when reviewing a web site that lists high school basketball scores from the 1920s through the 1970s. On the web address of http://sites.google.com/site/xtmi2000/ the town of “Kerens” is listed as playing Crossville in the first round of the District Tourney in Fairfield. In checking the area around Fairfield the only town with similar spelling was that of Keenes. Other ‘typos’ have been discovered on the site, so we believe that the author was writing about Keenes.

We believe that Keenes was a two or three-year high school that was open from the early 1920s through the late 1940s. At this time this information is simply an educated guess. We believe that when Keenes High School closed the students began attending nearby Wayne City High School, which is still going strong today.

Keenes High School Quick Facts

Year opened:                           1920s?

Year closed:                            1940s?

Consolidated to:                       Wayne City High School

Keenes HS Team Nickname:    ??

Keenes HS Team Colors:         ??

Keenes HS Fight Song:            ??