Watson District School - Bodega, CA - Photos Then and Now on Waymarking.com

From the Sonoma County Website: "Watson School is located on Bodega Highway between Sebastopol and the Town of Bodega, one mile west of Valley Ford-Freestone Road. The parcel is approximately three quarters of an acre in size. The original land was donated in 1856 by James Watson for the construction of a school to serve the communities of Bodega, Freestone and Valley Ford. James Watson also organized local pioneering families to help with the construction of the one-room, Greek-revival wooden schoolhouse. The school was built from redwood trees harvested along Joy Road and milled locally. The front of the schoolhouse has a functioning bell tower and bell. The school also has a unique sloping floor from the rear of the building to the front, which forms an amphitheater-shaped seating arrangement. A wood stove was installed as the only heating source for the building.

Watson School has the distinction of being the only one-room schoolhouse in public ownership within Sonoma County remaining on the original site, and is believed to be the longest operating one-room school, for more than 111 years (1856-1967), in California's public school history. A 1960-61 County School report indicated that the building had never been enlarged, remodeled, or altered, other than the addition of electrical wiring, modern plumbing and a new roof." (visit link)

Year photo was taken: 1950

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/07/2010 saopaulo1 visited it