White Chapel School - Wamego, KS
N 39° 12.153 W 096° 18.024
14S E 733112 N 4342726
The former White Chapel School is an historic one-room schoolhouse that was moved within Pottawatomie County, Kansas, to the Wamego Museum's Prairie Town Village in Wamego, Kansas, USA.
Waymark Code: WMCNHD
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 09/25/2011
Views: 2
No specific information is available for the original location of the old schoolhouse, just that it was moved from somewhere else in Pottawatomie County to Wamego, so I've used the coordinates listed on Wikipedia for the city of Wamego as the Original Location coordinates. A sign on the front of the school reads:
White Chapel School
Pottawatomie Co. District 51
Built in 1882 - Donated by Tom & Dale Scully 1984
According to a National Register of Historic Places application for a different school (Sunnyside School), the White Chapel School had the same construction design as indicated below:
"Sunnyside School comes from a plan book compiled by Topeka architects John Haskell and Louis M. H. Wood and is one of the earliest documented architect-designed schoolhouses in Kansas. Shortly after statehood, the Kansas Department of Public Instruction was offering suggestions on schoolhouse design. This particular school design was published in the 1879-1880 Second Biennial Report of the State Superintendent.5 The same design was also used for the construction of White Chapel School in Pottawatomie County, which is now located at the Wamego City Park/Historical Society Complex."
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"The Wamego Historical Society was organized in 1973. The museum and the Prairie Town Village are located in Wamego's beautiful 20 acre city park. In 1973 the first museum opened in the old Union Pacific Railroad stone workshed that was built in 1866. The Prairie Town Village started in the 1980's. In the early 1990's the Historical Society built the current museum which is a replica of Wamego's first city building."
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"The Village consists of a series of connected buildings, -- a log cabin, the first Pottawatomie County Jail from 1872, the Wamego Telephone Exchange building, a general store moved to Wamego from Flush, a restored one-room school and a newer building.
The newest building in the Village includes a 1950 Chrysler Coupe with original paint, tires and upholstery and only 31,000 miles on the odometer. Wamego is the birthplace of Walter P. Chyrsler (1875), who founded the Chrysler Corporation. His father was an engineer for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, which is now the Union Pacific Railroad.
The museum has many interesting displays. There is a cross-cut section of one of the limbs of the famous Louis Vieux Elm. The section is more than three feet in diameter. Originally the Louis Vieux Elm was a huge tree located along the Oregon Trail northeast of Wamego. For many years the elm was certified as the largest American elm tree in the U.S. Lightning and vandals destroyed most of the once famous tree.
The museum is fortunate to have several items from Wamego's Ames House Hotel. Items include a registration book containing such names as Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor. There is also a table from the hotel's dining room, the hotel's key/mailing slot cabinet and board from the structure's exterior. The hotel was one of the first hotels in Kansas and Wamego and was located near the railroad tracks on Lincoln Avenue. A windmill pumped water to the roof of the hotel, thus providing water which was very rare in those early days. This provided water for the first bathtub to exist west of the Mississippi River. These 'fineries' made the Ames Hotel a very popular overnight stay for the traveling men going west to sell their wares, gentleman on a hunting excursion for buffalo and also for 19th century railroad travelers.
There is a display of uniforms and paraphernalia from the Civil War, WWI, WWII and other wars to the present.
A full-body taxidermy buffalo is on display. Her name is Abigail. Abigail was a twin born near Paxico, Kansas. Her mother abandoned her in favor of her twin brother and so she was bottle fed by her owner-family. She was raised by the owner's daughter and when she became a little too frisky, she was turned out with the herd until her death at the age of 15. Because of the family's attachment, the decision was made to have her body preserved by a taxidermist and in 2004 the Museum acquired her for all to see and enjoy.
Balderson blacksmithing tools and forge used by Neil Balderson are on display. The business later grew to become Balderson Inc. and eventually the Caterpillar Company, Inc. which exists today in Wamego.
There are many other interesting displays you will enjoy."
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