07/23/2025
All family and friends of Tangier School are invited to attend the annual reunion slated this weekend to begin at 10:30 a.m. at the Woodward Senior Center. All who attend are asked to bring a covered dish.
The town that time forgot but lives in the memories of many
By Rachael Van Horn
Assistant Editor
If you slow way down and drive west of Woodward on State Highway 15 and follow some county roads going north, you might find yourself in what is left of a small ghost town called Tangier.
A quick bit of research will tell you that, by most opinions, the town of Tangier no longer exists.
But talk to those who still gather yearly to celebrate old memories of graduating from the long-closed Tangier School and you will learn – Tangier is still very much alive for them.
Once again, the Tangier Reunion is set to take place beginning at 10:30 a.m. at the Woodward Senior Citizen Center, July 27, said President of the Tangier Reunion Committee Diane Martin.
Martin said visiting will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., when lunch will be served. All who attend are asked to bring a covered dish.
Martin said there will be a short organizational meeting to discuss future events and try to garner support for those who would be willing to become officers.
To that end, Martin invited family and friends as well to the event, which attracted 42 attendees last year.
Martin said those who began the Tangier group need support to continue the yearly event, which will require younger participants. Those who wish to sign up to be an officer and help organize the next reunion need only sign up the day of the reunion this year, she said.
Unlike many who began the organization, Martin attended Tangier Elementary School until she was in the fifth grade. Many graduates of Tangier who used to organize the events have long since died – leaving the younger ones to carry on the tradition.
Martin’s last year to attend in 1962 saw her education moved to Woodward where she began sixth grade. But for her, Tangier would always be her school in her heart.
“I remember there were a total of 28 kids in first through fifth grade the entire time I went there," Martin said.
She said she remembers Mr. Mapes (Chester) who was the teacher for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders as well as the principal, superintendent of schools and the bus driver.
Today, Tangier school is a deteriorating pile of bricks. It’s old boiler room is still standing like an homage to the newest technology of the 1950s.
The Tangier Bridge is blocked for safety reasons but still stands like an icon reminding those who drive by of the many names who established the town in the late 1800s, including many generational names still found here such as Diel, Dewald, Eichman, Eirich, Faust, Freer, Feil / Fiel, Fritzler, Hohweiler, Laubhan, Lochmann, Meier, Peil, Ruppel, Schafer, Schneider, Stricker, Zwetzig and others.
On hot days, no air makes it to the basement room under the school and even the outside of the building seems curiously hot. But if you stand quietly in the space and focus, you can almost here Mr. Mapes ringing the first school bell of the day and the thunder of little feet and the scrape of claw-footed school desks on the oak floors - in a school and a town that time forgot.
If you slow way down and drive west of Woodward on State Highway 15 and follow some county roads going north, you might find yourself in what is left of
