South Gale School - One-Room Schoolhouses on Waymarking.com

Information compiled from the Smithville Historical Society. This building was erected in 1922. It had a basement under it for a furnace. It stood at the corner of Highways C and 92, just West of Smithville. The old building, on the same site, was a larger building heated by a big old pot-bellied stove located right in the middle of the room. Double desks surrounded it. The teacher’s desk was up front with a long bench in front of it for class recitations. At one time, it was not unusual for the enrollment to be between 70 and 75. Some were young men and women in their twenties, helping with the teaching of the young ones. We can understand this would have been a necessary situation, since there was only one teacher. How all of them could be crammed into the one room is hard to understand! One former student remembers that it sometimes happened that the well-behaved were sent to cut a switch for the teacher to use on the mischief makers; quite often the ones selected turned out to be rather large. Lida Rule was the teacher when the district became part of the Smithville School District in November, 1951. The teacher, with the five pupils - Shirley Kimsey and Jimmy Rule (1st grade); Bonnie Kimsey, Linda and Brenda Cox (7th grade) also became part of the Smithville School. When the school was no longer in use, it was moved from its original site to the ground adjacent Smithville High School, where it was used for some time by the school district. It housed the Industrial Arts classes, and later it was used as the Agriculture building. In 1972, the Smithville school district donated the physical structure of the school to the Smithville Missouri Historical Society. The historical society raised the funds necessary to move it, and it was placed adjacent to the Paterson Memorial Museum on Bridge Street. The inside of the schoolhouse was refurbished in an attempt to restore it to its original period. A new roof, new glass windows and a fresh coat of paint were among the improvements made. School desks were donated by the Gordon school district, and items like a teacher's desk bell, a small world globe, and a United States flag showing only 48 states became decorations. With the closing of the Paterson Memorial Museum, in the late 1980s, the schoolhouse was again moved. The schoolhouse now sits on Church Street, where it is open to visitors by appointment and is also available for some private bookings. Sources: South Gale School History of Smithville Historical Society

Year the school first opened.: 01/01/1922 Year the school closed.: 01/01/1951 Is the schoolhouse still open as a school?: no Address: E Church St Smithville, MO United States 64089 Web Address (if available): [Web Link] Does the school offer 19th century classroom reenactments or day camps?: no Original or Re-creation?: Not listed

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