1-room schools in varying states of repair
While some one-room schoolhouses in the county have been preserved by a municipality or official organization, others are much-loved buildings that their owners treasure.
Schoolhouses have been renovated and even moved before being outfitted with the historical items that allow visitors to hearken back to the days of inkwells and coal heat.
Cranberry Township moved the Sample School many years ago from its location on Rowan Road, where it was being used as a residential garage.The restored 1874 Sample School now sits outside the township building on Rochester Road and is available for tours in the summer months.
A one-room schoolhouse in Adams Township was dismantled and moved in 2014 from private property on Forsythe Road to the township's community park on Valencia Road.The school had been refurbished and events are held there, including meetings and weddings.
One old schoolhouse many people know about is the Little Red Schoolhouse on East Jefferson Street.Owned by the Butler County Historical Society, the schoolhouse was used from the time of its construction in 1838 until 1874, when a larger school was built nearby.Over the years, the Little Red Schoolhouse was used as an office, Butler's public library, a meeting room and the location of the Butler Red Cross during World War II.Group tours of the schoolhouse are available during the summer months.
One school in the county was refurbished not by a township or historical society, but through the efforts of a local retired Moniteau School District elementary teacher.“I drove past it every day on the way to work, and I thought it should be restored,” said Judy Karnes, who taught at Moniteau for 30 years.Karnes said the restoration of the Six Points School on Route 58 in Allegheny Township turned into a community project after she took up organizing the effort in 2000.Luckily, and unlike many other surviving one-room schools in the county, the Six Points School contained many of its original artifacts when restoration began.The school educated Allegheny Township students from 1875 to 1948.The land where the school sits was deeded to the township in 1957.According to “School's Out!” by Natalie A. Hall-Hiles, one student's uncle made him an arrow from a barn roof shingle, which all the boys in the school admired when he shot it through the air.“Soon thereafter, the school board was perplexed as to why all the shingles from the outhouse had disappeared,” the book states.
Karnes said the artifacts remain because, although the building was used for quilting bees and scouting activities over the years, it was never renovated into a house or other use, like many old schools.The blackboard, bell, potbelly coal stove, and a wooden trunk containing textbooks and the school's original flag were intact inside the school when Karnes kicked off the restoration project.The township building contained a few artifacts from the school, including portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, which the supervisors donated back to the school.A “recitation bench” at the township building also was donated back to the school.Karnes explained the bench is where students would recite their lessons to the teacher, grade level by grade level.Because the small, rural township could not fund the restoration, Karnes and her volunteers went door to door, approached local businesses and placed flyers throughout the municipality asking for help with the school's restoration.She said businesses and local residents donated labor and cash to restore the historic school, which took about five years.“It was a community effort,” Karnes said.The exact replication of the Six Points School was aided by two surviving teachers at the time, Karnes said.The school contains the contract of teacher Veda McGinnis, who helped with the restoration project and only recently died at age 107.“Her mind was really sharp, so she was a great help,” Karnes said.She said many residents donated pictures, desks and other items they had from the school as well.Karnes said she is the last member of the Six Points School restoration committee, and is disappointed that interest in the historical building is waning.“I need young people to help me,” Karnes said. “It needs to be cleaned up because birds can get in there.”She offers tours of the schoolhouse upon request.
The former Eberhart School still stands on Whitestown Road just west of its intersection with Eberhart Road.The building was sold in 1927 when it closed and was renovated into a home.The current owner, John “Jack” Povlick, has rented it out to various families over the years and now uses it for storage.Povlick intended to restore the school to its original condition and even gathered desks including a teacher's desk, but at 83 years old, doesn't feel he will be able to complete the project.Povlick, an Armco retiree, grew up next door to the building, which was owned by the Barkley family at that time.He recalls Mrs. Barkley ringing the school bell to call her children home for dinner. The bell had been taken down and placed in the backyard.“Somebody eventually stole it,” Povlick said.He bought the building from the Ritz family in 1962.“It had sentimental value to me,” Povlick said. “I could tell you 100 stories about what happened here.”The family who bought the building in 1927 plastered over the 40-foot blackboard used by the school's teachers, but Povlick uncovered part of the historical relic while renovating it in the 1960s.He left a section of it exposed and put a wooden frame around it for posterity.
“My wife and I used to leave each other notes on the blackboard,” Povlick said.The building still sports the original wooden floor and the former hole is visible where the coal stove's exhaust pipe entered the still-standing brick chimney.Part of the basement floor remains dirt, and a mysterious three-foot high tunnel leads out of the northeast corner.Povlick's nephew, Chris Pfabe, crawled back the tunnel about 10 or 15 feet at one point.“We have no idea what it's for or where it goes” said Pfabe, who lives directly across from the old school.The large concrete badge denoting the building as “Eberhart School #6, 1910” had been chiseled out from over the front entrance so the first owner could install an awning.Povlick had the badge professionally restored many years ago and placed it back in its original position, with help.“That thing must weigh 500 pounds,” he said.The stone stoop at the front door, Povlick pointed out, has a dip from the wear and tear of the small feet that entered the school in the morning and leaped out for the walk home upon dismissal some 110 years ago.Because the mortar between the original bricks was severely deteriorated when Povlick bought the building, he had it covered with a special mortar grout and painted it with 15 gallons of brick-red paint to simulate the original look of the school.Povlick will pass the former Eberhart School on to Pfabe, but regrets that it was never fully restored.“But, I'm 83,” he said.
