By Sherrin Grout
This article was featured in our May – June 2026 Historian Newsletter
As the school year comes to a close, I thought it would be appropriate to show the middle and end of the last original building in the Springfield Plaza area—the schoolhouse. Built in 1856 as a Methodist Episcopal Church, it was used sporadically after the first minister, the Rev. George Taylor, held services regularly on Sunday evenings. The building originally had a center door flanked by a window on either side. Over the door, just below the cornice, was an indentation with iron letters reading “1856,” the year it was erected.
It became a school when, in 1864, the trustees purchased it, furnished it with
desks, and planted trees. The trustees bricked up the center front door, took out the side windows, and fitted doors in their place, making an entrance on the left for girls, on the right for boys. Each door opened into an anteroom for their wraps. A flagpole was placed at the front peak. This building replaced two wooden shacks
previously used as school rooms.
In the summer of 1914, the flagpole was removed from the roof and placed in front of the building, where it remained until the school was closed. In the fall of 1918, the building was found unsafe and the classes were moved to a house on the west side of the plaza. A large timber was bolted between the walls to support and strengthen the structure: then school resumed in the building.
In 1924, the building was condemned, and the school was moved to the office of the Springfield Mining Company, about a mile west of town. In the summer of 1926, the roof was removed from the original school building, and the walls were lowered to the tops of the doors and windows. A new roof like the first was then put on the building. School continued in the building until the fall of 1938, when the building was again condemned, and the schoolhouse was closed in the old brick building. The teacher and pupils were absorbed into the new Columbia School for the remainder of that year. In September 1939, school reopened at Springfield in a
house fitted up by Mr. Engler on the east side of Shaws Flat Road just out of Springfield.
The school closed for good in June 1940.