Six Points School lets visitors step back in time
Veda McGinnis, 107, taught during the 1943-44 school year at the Six Points School No. 5 in Allegheny Township, and provided information on how furniture was arranged and what was stored in cupboards and drawers when the school was restored and reopened to the public in 2004.
“I'm very thankful because I think one of these one-room schools should be preserved, or the next generation will have no idea of what a one-room school is,” said McGinnis in a July 2004 story in the Butler Eagle. “In fact, right now a lot of people don't know what a one-room school is.”
McGinnis donated her own teaching contract and other documents to the project.
“They just asked about the arrangement,” she said in the article. “My desk was on the left-hand side as you entered, then there was a recitation bench in front of that. Then, of course, there was a big stove.
“You had to go down in the morning and get the fire going so it would be warm when the children got there.”
The building, restored through the efforts of Judy Karnes, a retired elementary teacher in the Moniteau School District, and as many as 100 other volunteers, contains its original chalkboard and other relics from the early 1900s, when students in grades one through eight studied there.
“There were lamps along the side, the old-fashioned kerosene lamps with reflectors behind them,” McGinnis said. “There was no electricity and, of course, no screens in the windows.”
The school was built in 1875 and used until 1948, according to the article. The township schools were eventually absorbed into the Allegheny-Clarion Valley School District. The schoolhouse was deeded to the township, which used it for storage until its restoration began.
The school is open by appointment only. For more information, call 724-791-2163.
