One-room schoolhouse, one big dream

In the ghost town of Point Douglas, high on a river bluff, stands one of Minnesota's oldest one-room schoolhouses, destined for a new future.

If a local historical society can raise enough money, its members say they will buy the 160-year-old school and reopen it to the public, offering visitors a peek into the past.

The old Valley School might even become an interpretive center with information for regional visitors, they said.

To that end, the Denmark Township Historical Society has launched a campaign to raise $125,000 to purchase and restore the building and grounds, which closed in 1946.

The Valley School is located along St. Croix Trail, at the junction with Hwy. 10 in the southern tip of Washington County.

The gray clapboard building, which is in good condition, is among the little that is left of Point Douglas, where pioneers settled at the confluence of the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers beginning with their first hut in 1838.

Point Douglas formed one of the oldest school districts in the state six years later, with classes taught in homes at first.

Lyla Davies, a founder of the Denmark Township Historical Society, said she's long dreamed of saving Valley School for its regional importance as one of Minnesota's oldest one-room schools. A resident of Denmark Township for 67 years, Davies is helping with the campaign to buy the school.

Built in 1852, it replaced a log school that was built on the site two years earlier but burned.

The Peterson family has owned the property for nearly 40 years and recently offered to sell the building and nearly an acre of land for $80,000. The additional $45,000 to be raised will go for restoration, insurance and other costs.

Historical society members say they're eager to exercise their first option on the property.

"It's a given -- people should want to save these old relics," said Davies, the historical society's past president.

Current President Wayne Boyd said the Peterson family took excellent care of the old treasure in the 40 years they've owned it.

"We plan to restore the building and grounds and to transform them into a historic site where children can explore pioneer learning and where visitors can learn about an important chapter in our history," Boyd said.

"We hope the site can also serve as an interpretive center, welcoming visitors to the river valley and to Minnesota."

"People really get excited when they hear about this little old building that's been there for all those years," said Mavis Voigt, a board member of the local historical society. "Now it's coming back to life."

School days remembered

Just across the Mississippi River, 90-year-old Helen Ruedy is pleased to hear of the plans for the school, where she said she graduated from eighth grade.

On frigid days, her father, a Denmark Township farmer who himself had attended the school, would hitch up the horses and sleigh to drive her and other kids to school, blankets over their laps, Ruedy recalled from her Hastings apartment.

She laughed at the memory of dashing through snow to the outhouses out back, one for girls and one for boys.

Throughout the nation, it was an era when thousands of one-room schoolhouses were the heart of their rural communities, drawing people for meetings, elections, theatrical performances, picnics and church services.

"Some are now historic museums, private residences, living history programs or are still in operation as bonafide schools," according to America's One-Room Schoolhouses, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the public understand country education.

Minnesota has a one-room school still operating on the Canadian border, in the Northwest Angle. The Angle Inlet School, about 65 miles from Warroad, serves roughly a dozen students a year. Some take boats or snowmobiles to school.

Among eight or so one-room schoolhouses in Minnesota that no longer operate but still stand is the Hay Lake School, south of Scandia.

The Denmark historical group intends to keep Valley School at its location so it can qualify for the National Register of Historic Places, Voigt said.

"Our group is very small, but we had really big ideas, and we thought this would be such a neat thing, to preserve this school. It's a remnant of the pioneer days, and it's important to Minnesotans because there are very few of them left on their original sites."

Dean Peterson was the youngest of four farm brothers who played floor hockey in the old school, or used it as a boyhood fort, he said.

His family and the Historical Society have discussed the sale for seven years, with everyone involved seeing the old schoolhouse as "one of a kind," he said.

'An easy decision'

Peterson's family used to store carpet for their business in the school but outgrew those storage needs, he said.

"With the historical significance that I've learned from them, it was an easy decision to sell the property in its entirety to the historical society," Dean Peterson said. "It's going to be refurbished, renewed, and hopefully I can bring my children here."

He and his brother, Doug Peterson, gathered with others at the school recently, admiring the tin ceiling and original blackboards as sun streamed through small windows.

Outside, a cluster of history buffs stood nearby, discussing the school and Denmark Township. They and the Peterson brothers looked up and smiled as an eagle circled above the schoolhouse, then winged toward a nest along the river.

"As I envision it, settlers came up the [river], and what a great place for a school and a future city," Dean Peterson said, looking around with a smile,

"It's the remains of the past."

Joy Powell • 651-925-5038