Kansas One Room
School House Project
One-Room School House News
University Relations News Release--The University of Kansas
September 15, 1994--News and Public Issues
Kansas History
KANSAS-L PROJECT SEEKS ONE-ROOM-SCHOOL HISTORIES
LAWRENCE-Fifty years ago, more than 2,000 one-room schoolhouses dotted the Kansas plains. They had names like Antelope and Apple Pie and Jumbo. Some were still in use 30 years ago. Their histories are primarily stored in memories of former teachers and students.Lynn H. Nelson, University of Kansas history professor, wants to preserve those memories as part of Kansas heritage. He has joined Vera Ellerman Rodecap Hurst, author and retired teacher in Atchison, and Stephen Chinn, a systems analyst with Kansas roots working in Nashville, Tenn., in creating HERITAGE: Center for Kansas Genealogy, Local and Family History computer network. HERITAGE is intended to rediscover and preserve Kansas history through uncopyrighted texts and images, family letters, photographs, maps and even music.
Three projects are under way through HERITAGE: the Kansas Pioneer Project, the Early Kansas Imprint Project and the Kansas School House Project. All serve to collect facts and documents and make the data available to the public.
Genealogists are contributing heavily to the Kansas Pioneer Project, and volunteers are scanning old books and pamphlets for the imprint project. For the schoolhouse project, Nelson, Chinn and Hurst hope that Kansas high school classes will adopt local, one-room schools. The information they gather about the schools and the histories they write can be placed in HERITAGE where they will be accessible throughout the world.
"During its first century, the one-room schoolhouse was one of Kansas' fundamental social institutions," Nelson said. The project list includes some 200 schools, a far cry from the thousands that once existed. The project has begun with a short list that includes some dates and a few teachers' names. For example, Jumbo school in Leoti, Wichita County, opened in 1900 and closed in 1961.
Quaker School in Geary County was open from 1872 to 1948, and Rhoda N. Loa was a principal teacher. Riggs School, at what would be 15th and Delaware streets in Lawrence, was open from 1871 to 1899.
Two years ago, Nelson, a medieval specialist, developed a major computer network and World Wide Web facility for historians, HNSOURCE. Nelson met Chinn, Vanderbilt University computer center employee, through HNSOURCE. While researching his family history, Chinn learned of a book on one-room schools in Kansas that Hurst has written. Chinn's great-grandfather settled in Kansas, and his grandfather attended Swartz School in Morris County near what is now Dwight, southeast of Junction City.
story by Mary Jane Dunlap, (913) 864-3256
Copyright 1994, The University of Kansas Office of University Relations
Saturday, October 13, 2001 8:11 PM
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