There’s this notion that the one-room schoolhouse is a relic of the 1800s, more suited to the education of a pioneer than a third-generation resident. Like most deeply-held beliefs concerning these little structures, this impulse is far from the reality. Indeed, in rural communities across America you can still find people who — however advanced in age — can still distinctly remember attending school with kids twice their age in one of these small schools. Lake County is no different.
The history of education in 19th-century Lake County was one dominated by the one-room schoolhouse. By 1900, all but five of the nearly four dozen schools in the county had only a single classroom. The idyllic days of rural schoolhouses were numbered, however, and in Lake County the death knell came in the form of consolidated school districts. When two or more school districts consolidated, the governing structure of each district dissolved and a new one formed from the older two. More importantly to the survival of one-room schoolhouses, however, was the combining of student bodies following consolidation. One day a school district could be serving only 20 students and the next, after consolidating, over 50.
In one fell swoop a one-room schoolhouse could become inadequate for the job.
These small schoolhouses did “not go gentle into that good night,” however. Instead they persisted in the far-reached communities of south Lake County and in the Mayacamas. People in these remote areas seemed loathe to give up the independence associated with running their own school, with having nearly a direct say in how their children were taught. Several of these schools would remain open through the 1950s and beyond.
Before you get too nostalgic and hail the one-room schoolhouse as the answer to the problems facing over-crowded schools of today, remember that the lens through which these buildings are remembered is often rose-tinted.
A collection of letters in the Historic Courthouse Museum brings this point home and reveals in stark contrast the harsh reality of operating a single-room school in depression-era Lake County. The letters belonged to Minerva Ferguson. As Superintendent of Lake County Schools for over 20 years, Minerva Ferguson was responsible for ensuring that all the schools in Lake County complied with state and federal laws. Each year she would submit a detailed report on the condition of local schools and education to the state Superintendent of Public Instruction. The letters at the museum date from 1920 until Ms. Ferguson’s retirement in 1939 and reveal the kinds of issues rural school districts faced in the early 20th century.
A group of letters detailing the struggles of the Cache Creek School District, in particular, cast one-room schoolhouses in a somewhat unflattering light. Dating to June and July of 1935, the first of the letters is from a trustee of the Cache Creek district to Ms. Ferguson. In the letter the gentleman explains that the building the district had been renting as a school for the past few years would no longer be available for them to use — this just two months before the start of the new school year. You can feel the frantic energy coming off the letters as Ms. Ferguson maneuvered towards this latest problem, writing to the state Superintendent of Public Instruction for advice. When the trustees informed Ms. Ferguson that they had found a building in which they could hold class the next year, Ms. Ferguson seemed cautiously optimistic that the disaster had been averted. That is, until she sent a health inspector to the property in question.
The report submitted to Ms. Ferguson on the condition of the building is appalling. The structure — more of a farm shed — measured only 21 by 9 feet. Gaps in the wood siding let in wind that whipped up dust from the dirt floor. The two small windows on the south of the shack let in only enough light to catch the dust motes in midair and reveal that there was no wood stove or other means of heating the space. The lack of toilets on site and the fact that the building was expected to fit 18 students and a teacher sealed its fate — there was no way classes could be held here.
Things were looking grim for Cache Creek School District as July gave way to August and the start of school loomed on the horizon. Finally, on August 13, the trustees sent word to Ms. Ferguson’s office that the building they had been using before as a school was once more available. After visiting the building herself, Ms. Ferguson gave her approval for class to once again be held in the rented space, on the condition that “the hay [be] removed and the windows replaced.” Apparently the building was part-time school, part-time barn.
Following a survey on the condition of the schools in 1936, Cache Creek and the nearby Long Valley School District were found to be in the worst shape of them all. It should be noted that of the 18 elementary schools surveyed not one of them passed with high marks (even the newer, modern ones, fared poorly). Rather than consolidate, Cache Creek and Long Valley followed the by-then well-trod path of dissolution. Before the end of the decade, these two districts had dissolved and their students sent to East Lake and other nearby schools.
Wrapped up in the same impulse that tells us one-room schoolhouses died with the dawn of the 20th century are a multitude of other assumptions, each one firmly attached to the image of a quaint, red-painted, clapboard building with a rising belfry. These myths are reaffirmed over the years by stories told by the few remaining residents who actually experienced one-room schoolhouse education.
Sometimes true, sometimes not, the stories of rural schools in Lake County are always interesting.
Tony Pierucci is a freelance writer and Curator of Lake County Museums
Want to learn more about the history of schools and education in Lake County? Buy Tony Pierucci’s new book, Schoolhouses of Lake County, available for purchase at the Lower Lake Historic Schoolhouse Museum and the Historic Courthouse Museum in Lakeport.
