Former Iowa schoolhouses added to National Register of Historic Places

Five, one-room schoolhouses in Iowa have been added to the National Register of Historic Places. Bill Sherman of the “Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance” says the five schools include the Stone Academy north of Solon in Johnson County. The Stone Academy was built in 1842, before Iowa became a state. It’s the second oldest building in Iowa still being used as a school. The Antioch School east of Anamosa was also added to the list. Famed Iowa artist Grant Wood attended Antioch school, situated among the rolling hills of Jones County. Sherman says those hills inspired some of Wood’s paintings. Sherman says the schools get important exposure by being placed on the National Register. The other schools added to the National Register are: Logan Center near Ayrshire in Clay County; “Bennington number four” in Black Hawk County and “Mann number two” in Monona County. Thirty-six one-room and three two-room schools in Iowa are now on the National Register. Sherman doesn’t think that’s enough. Sherman says nearly 200 of the remaining three thousand one-room schools in Iowa have been turned into some type of museum facility. There were originally over 12-thousand such schools in Iowa.