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By the 1990s, Tiger Valley School in Union Township was on the verge of disintegrating, having been abandoned for over a half a century. Agnes Harlett donated the building to the Knox County Ag Museum.
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A team of volunteers led by Guy Van Nostrand, Jr., carefully disassembled the old schoolhouse, labeling all the boards, and reconstructed it on the grounds of the Knox County Fairgrounds, adjacent to the museum.
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In addition to rebuilding the school, the volunteers added a belfry and removed the original corner fireplace to put a pot-bellied stove display in the center of the room, more typical of how one-room schoolhouses were heated.
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The inside of the schoolhouse has been restored and decorated using authentic donated items that were once used throughout Knox County’s 142 one-room schools.
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Unlike modern desks, the seats of each vintage desk were attached to the desk behind it. For many decades, this was the dominant style of classroom furniture. Each desk also had a hole for an inkwell.
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Typical of the equipment of a school of the 1800s were McGuffey Readers, a series of graded primers that educators used to teach millions of Americans how to read.
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Sisters Rita Durbin, Agnes (Durbin) Harlett, and Frances (Durbin) Miller all attended the once bustling Tiger Valley School before it was closed in 1935.
Newspack Team More by adminnewspack