Pine Top One-Room School - Mincy (Kirbyville), MO USA - One-Room Schoolhouses on Waymarking.com

According to a State Historical Society of Missouri article, when the Post Office (now long gone) for Pine Top was established in 1904, Mrs. J. W. Blankenship, wife of the proprietor of the hotel or lodge, suggested the name in jest, in allusion to an obstructing pine tree top which the surveyors had failed to remove. It is interesting to note that a 3 March 1906 article from the Kansas City Kansas Globe (OCR Text, about half way down) talks about some travelers from Stone County who, a couple of weeks previously, were

... hoofing it over the mountains to Branson one day when they found nestling in the woods by the roadside the old Pine Top school house. The door stood wide open, but the school house was deserted ...

But whether this means that the school was permanently closed, or whether it was just closed for the year (in February??), is not stated.

On page 225 of A Living History of the Ozarks, by Phyllis Rossiter (first printing in 1992), can be found a photo of this school when it still had the name sign on the front, and the light above the door was not mangled. The photograph is not clear enough to see if the bell was still in the tower. The caption under the photograph says:

On the old Springfield to Harrison Road, now Hwy JJ, still stands Pine Top School. Pine Top community in its heyday was the site of a dram shop (saloon) that served the workers building the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railway (later Missouri Pacific) across western Taney County about 1903 to 1905. The coming of the railroad accelerated the cutting and sawing of the pine woods which once clothed these hills. Lumber was loaded on railroad cars at the Pine Top Switch, a flag station on the railway. Now no sign remains of the dram shop or the switch[,] and few pines are left to remind us of the lush pinery that flourished here.

Original or Re-creation?: Original Is the schoolhouse still open as a school?: no Address: State Secondary Route JJ Kirbyville, MO USA 65679 Does the school offer 19th century classroom reenactments or day camps?: no Year the school first opened.: Not listed Year the school closed.: Not listed Web Address (if available): Not listed

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Date Logged Log   02/05/2016 MountainWoods visited it