The Arthur Street School, located at 416 Arthur St. in Ashland, OH, and formerly known as the Walnut Street school, was originally built as a two-room wooden structure in 1871. Three-and-a-half decades later, the schoolhouse was replaced by an eight-room brick building in 1907 after the board of education passed a resolution for the change. The structure that stands today was constructed in 1927. In 1981, the school was officially closed and the building remained as administrative offices for the Ashland city school district until 2016. In June, 2020, the district agreed to sell the 93-year-old building to Schwab Development, LLC for $10,000. On February 18, 2021, the National Register of Historic Places added the school to its compendium of historic buildings, where it joins another Ashland building, The Freer Home (formerly the Ashland County Children’s Home).
Ashland native Kyle von Kamp was excited to see the school make the national register. To him, seeing local buildings on the register is something to take pride in. He thinks it’s important to find ways to preserve these historic buildings so that they can be remembered and honored for times to come. Von Kamp is a member of Preservation Ohio, a statewide non-profit corporation focused on advocacy for and education about Ohio’s historic buildings, downtowns, neighborhoods, landscapes, and communities. While the Arthur Street School’s placement on the national register does not provide it with protection from being torn down, a placement does allow for benefits such as national grants and tax credits. Von Kamp says that rehab projects could keep historic buildings like the Arthur St. School alive while still giving them a use.
The Evansville Historical Foundation (EHF) was founded by Alf Thompson with the purpose of preserving the history of Evansville, MN, and the surrounding area for current and future generations to enjoy. Alf Thompson (1895 – 1997) was an independent oil producer and philanthropist, the founder of the Evansville Historical Foundation, located on the homestead settled by Wilhelm Thompson who received a patent on the land in 1875 and built the house in 1878. Mr. Thompson was one of many pioneers with a deep interest in preserving their roots in the Evansville area. His vision was to recreate a village of the kind founded by early settlers of the area, providing younger generations with a view of pioneer life. Mr. Thompson will long be remembered for his support of the Evansville Historical Foundation and the Evansville area.
The District #90 One Room Country Schoolhouse in the Evansville Historical Foundation Pioneer Village was moved from its original location outside of Evansville and is furnished with items one would expect to find in a country school. According to an entry in the Evansville Enterprise on December 2, 1898, “Lumber was bought in Evansville on Tuesday with which to build the new school house in District No. 90….” Bertina Thompson (Alf Thompson’s sister) was the first teacher at this school when it opened on January 30, 1899.
The Big Woods School is a historic one-room schoolhouse located at 3033 N. Eola Road in Aurora, Illinois. The school was built by the Schiffler Brothers in 1917–18 to replace the original Big Woods School, which was built in the mid-19th century and had fallen into disrepair. The red brick school building has a Craftsman design. It was one of the first schoolhouses in DuPage County built after Illinois’ Sanitation Law of 1915, which created a set of modern safety and sanitation standards for the state’s public schools. The school’s plan is essentially the same as that recommended by the state, with considerations for playground space, lighting, ventilation, and indoor plumbing. In 1963, the school closed due to consolidation with two nearby schools, and the building was sold to a private owner; it is now owned by a not-for-profit preservation group. The schoolhouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 21, 2016.
The small town of Lowman, Idaho, nestled deep in the mountains on the South Fork of the Payette River, is a real treasure in Boise County. Most of the homes are in small subdivisions adjoining forest land. Lowman Elementary School is the one and only school located in the town of Lowman, which is in a remote rural setting. The student population of Lowman Elementary School averages 8, and the school serves PK-6. The student-teacher ratio is 8:1, which is better than that of the district. The student population is made up of 38% female students and 62% male students. There is 1 equivalent full-time teacher. All are taught solely by Mrs. Kim Grigg.
The one room school is part of the center of the community. The school’s students enjoy cross-country skiing and sledding in the winter. In the summer, the kids grow a large vegetable garden on the school grounds. The curriculum just varies year to year on how many students there are. So how exactly does one teach multiple grades all at the same time? It takes a lot of planning. The classes do a variety of lessons together that are differentiated between the grade levels with all working together to teach and reinforce what is being learned. Part of the Garden Valley School District, the Lowman Elementary School consistently ranks first among elementary schools in Idaho, beating out 320 schools statewide.
Anahola School is a complex of three buildings: the classroom building, former cafeteria building, and the toilet building. The classroom and main part of the cafeteria are single-wall wood-frame construction, and the toilet building is a combination of concrete and wood-frame construction. The design and materials of the buildings are essentially intact, although some additions have been made to the rear of the two main buildings, and some of the original materials are covered over or deteriorated. The Anahola School Buildings are significant because of their relation to developments in public education in the Territory of Hawaii, the architecture of Kauai’s public schools, and the specific history of the settlement of the Anahola area.
The Edwardsville Children’s Museum located at 722 Holyoake Rd. in Edwardsville, IL, a museum destination with activities and hands-on exhibits for kids, plus play spaces for toddlers, is committed to stimulating curiosity and cultivating learning at the age of wonder, and while this former schoolhouse divided in 4 rooms with a reading room upstairs may be pretty small compared to other museums, it’s perfect for young children, having about 15 ‘stations’ with different activities.
Born in 1844, N. O. Nelson was to prove himself a true child of the industrial revolution. Although he was born in Norway, he grew up in rural northwestern Missouri after immigrating with his family to the United States at the age of two. Drawing on earlier examples of the cooperative movement and profit sharing, he pursued what he saw as a middle ground between capitalism and socialism. His intent was to create a total environment that would foster contentment for those who lived there. The name for his enterprise, Leclaire, was chosen by the workers and came from an account of the house of Edmund Leclaire in Paris, France, one of the pioneering experiments in profit sharing.
By 1890, Nelson had located a site for his factory and village on the outskirts of Edwardsville, Illinois. Nelson’s first priority was the erection of the factory buildings, hiring of workers, and the production and shipment of goods. Nelson attributed much of the dissatisfaction among factory workers in the cities to inadequate housing and the hopelessness of home ownership. He determined to place home ownership in Leclaire within reach of all who wanted it.
The second cornerstone of Leclaire was an educational system for the young and continuing education for adults. Nelson believed in combining manual training with academic education, calling it the development of the head and the hand. The educational opportunities were offered for free to residents and their neighbors in Edwardsville. The schoolhouse was a spacious and attractive structure, in the style of a Chinese pagoda, and had four rooms. Partitions could be moved to expand it into a single hall for public meetings, dancing, and other social activities. The village’s library, containing over 1,400 volumes, was also housed there. The school and the library were overseen by the Leclaire School and Library Association, whose members were resident homeowners in Leclaire. Both the school and the library were supported by company profits.
The formal educational system consisted of three steps. Kindergarten children were taught, among other things, the cultivation of flowers and vegetables. Between this age and twelve a regular school course was followed, supplemented by manual training. At twelve, boys were given one hour of light work daily either in the factories or on the dairy farm and were paid a small stipend. The number of hours worked increased as the boys grew older. Girls were included but received domestic training in place of manual training. Education was designed so that a child, graduating at the age of eighteen, had received a sound classroom education while acquiring technical skills and work experience. If the graduate desired, employment was waiting for him with the company. Leclaire was not a place of all work and no play, and abundant recreational facilities were provided. An evening lecture series was presented at the school house during the winter.
Leclaire’s kindergarten program began in the fall of 1892 in the Leclaire Club House at 722 Holyoake Road. In 1895, the Club House was moved to 743 Hale Avenue so that a new education building could be constructed on Holyoake. There were many experiments in education in Leclaire’s early years, but the kindergarten was the only one that lasted beyond a few years. From 1896 to 1898 there was a Leclaire Academy and for some of those years a Leclaire College offered classes for older students and adults free of charge, but these did not last long. After this time, the building’s daytime educational endeavors were dedicated to the kindergarten. While the building was called the Leclaire School House prior to this, it now became known as the Leclaire Kindergarten.
When Leclaire was annexed by Edwardsville in 1934, the School House was sold to the Edwardsville School District. The building was then divided into four permanent classrooms, one for Miss Shaw’s private kindergarten, and the other rooms for grades 1-3. The building closed as a school house in 1963. Mildred continued to teach her private kindergarten students until 1943 when she married Edwin Briggs and, like the Leclaire teachers before her, left teaching to become a house wife. The 1895 Leclaire School House is now home to the Edwardsville Children’s Museum. (The former Club House building is no longer in existence.)
The Botanic Garden at Georgia Southern University at Statesboro, GA, is now the home of the Oak Grove Schoolhouse, a one-room school typical of those that served most of Georgia’s rural students from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. The Oak Grove Schoolhouse was originally constructed in Tattnall County, Georgia. In 2007 the schoolhouse was moved to Bowen-Rushing Road, where it was restored and then relocated in 2010 to its current home at the Garden.
In 1900 there were more than 7000 of these one-room schools in the state of Georgia, but today only a select few of them have been preserved. Groups can schedule a tour with the Garden to see what school was like for rural Georgia students in the 19th and 20th centuries. While at the Garden, guests can also visit the restored Weathervane Barn, which contains a museum of rural life from the 1920s and 30s. Special thanks go to the vision and generosity of Ms. Jan Anderson, who donated the Oak Grove School to Georgia Southern University during its centennial celebration in 2007.
The Mechanicsville School, built in 1911, is one of the few schoolhouses of the era still standing. It’s has remained virtually unchanged – and it’s located in Peachtree Corners. Except for a beautifully preserved old farmhouse in the Tony Neely Farm subdivision, there isn’t much of Peachtree Corners’ past to see. Developers came in and plowed under old homes, barns and other keepsakes of its past to make room for sprawling subdivisions on meandering streets leaving the community without much to remind it of its roots. But the city’s expanded borders have taken in a bit of the area’s past – a one-room schoolhouse built in the early 1900s.
The Mechanicsville School, located on the corner of Third Street and Florida Avenue is hidden from the hustle and bustle of nearby Buford Highway just west of the railroad tracks. The wood-framed schoolhouse, surrounded by industrial and commercial businesses, seems out of place. But it once served the children of the mechanics who lived and worked in the area. Records show that Mechansville’s former teachers were required not only to teach 1st through 7th grade students, but also to sweep the floors, gather wood, and build fires in the two pot-bellied stoves during the winter months. Despite being registered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, the historic building remains almost forgotten.
The school operated for 28 years before Gwinnett County began consolidating schools and constructing better buildings. Records show that in 1923 two teachers taught 87 students for a school year that lasted only six and a half months. Wooden schoolhouses without running water, bathrooms, adequate lighting, or playgrounds were common in the area during the early part of the 20th century. Most are now long gone, relegated to a simple page in a nearly-forgotten history book. The little building is a treasure trove of history with its original desks and some of the other furnishings still stored in the attic. Gwinnett County Public School system currently owns the building.
On January 25, 1849, Tampa, FL, elected five trustees in what is considered Tampa’s first City Council, with M. G. Sikes serving as president of the governing body. The trustees included Jesse Carter. A Florida native, Jesse Carter resided where the University of Tampa is now located. He served as a State Militia Colonel and General in the 2nd Seminole Indian war, as well as Florida’s special agent on Indian affairs to Gov. Broome. He also worked to establish schools in Tampa, and had a key role in the construction of Tampa’s first school building in 1858.
Seminole wars Gen. Jesse Carter built a schoolhouse in early 1858 on the west bank of the Hillsborough River. It was located on what would become the grounds of the Tampa Bay Hotel, now the University of Tampa. Some writers cite a circa 1855 date or even as early as 1850, but the wording in an 1858 newspaper ad for the school implies a Feb. 1858 completion date.
The History of Hillsborough Co. Schools and the historical marker placed at the school, state that General Carter built the school because he intended to provide an education for his daughter, Josephine. To do this, he paid for the construction of a small, one-room schoolhouse and hired Mrs. Louisa Porter, a teacher from Key West. Although this school could be classified as a “private school,” General Carter opened the school to the public free of charge.
Jessie J. Hayden purchased the property in 1865. His granddaughter Marion A. McKay was born in the building on Oct. 8, 1875. In 1886 Henry B. Plant bought the property for his hotel. He saved the School and it was used as an apothecary shop by Dr. J. M. Grantham. In 1905 the Hotel was sold to the City of Tampa. The School was presented to the DeSoto Chapter DAR in 1931 by Mayor D. B. McKay and City Representatives.
The Old Schoolhouse and marker are located on University Drive east of North Brevard Street, on the left when traveling west. They are on the campus of the University of Tampa, between Plant Hall (the former Tampa Bay Hotel, and a National Historic Landmark) and the John H. Sykes College of Business (former City of Tampa Municipal Auditorium), and north of Smiley Hall.
Logan School House is a historic one-room school building located at Kitts Hummock, Kent County, Delaware. It was built about 1868, and is a one-story, gable roofed frame structure with grey simulated brick composition siding. The interior has a plastered barrel vault ceiling. The school served the educational requirements of the agricultural community of lower St. Jones Neck School District. Sometime after 1920 the building ceased to function as a school and it was converted into a private dwelling. It was posted to the National Register of Historic Places on May 22, 1979.
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