19 Jul 2015 Snow Lick Mountain schoolhouse stories

Posted at 7:35 PMh in Travel by

Story and photos
by Linda Henderson

Summer will be winding down soon. Moms’ and dads’ thoughts will quickly return to putting kiddos back on the school bus and purchasing school supplies. Students will be returning to up-to-date school buildings with air-conditioning, multiple classrooms and modern technology. The idea of students of all ages learning together in a single classroom with a single teacher is as antiquated as a five-inch floppy disk.

There was a time when almost every American child learned in a one-room schoolhouse. Many of our most dearly loved American presidents and heroes received their early education in a rural one-room school building with no running water, potbelly stove and an outhouse.

As we travel the 501, I have seen many old buildings that I suspect may have been a one-room schoolhouse, but I have found no history or evidence that supports my suspicions. I do, however, have knowledge of one abandoned schoolhouse, the Snow Lick Mountain School near Alread in Van Buren County. Our family owns the property that the old schoolhouse stands on.

We do know a little history about the old building and the community that surrounded Snow Lick Mountain. Information from the Early Schools of Van Buren County 1850 to 1950 reports that a community school was operated on the mountain as early as 1897.

The first Snow Lick School was taught under a brush arbor and later a frame building with a dirt floor and hewn logs for benches was built on top of the mountain. Oral history from the area accounts that pupils that attended the earliest school lived down on the South Fork Creek and had to climb the mountain four miles to get to school. Early pioneers blazed a trail up the mountain with a chopping ax to make the trip shorter. Sometime after 1930 the building was moved from the top of the mountain to its present location. A wooden floor and a chimney with an iron stove were added. Sometime during the 1950s as population in the area decreased the Van Buren School District consolidated the Snow Lick Community School with the Alread School System.

In years past, elderly former students would stop by the old building and share their memories of life on the mountain. Some related spelling matches on Friday afternoon when parents came to visit and compete in spelling bees with students. We have enjoyed the stories of the teacher teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, history and geography. They told us about hauling water from the box spring at the bottom of the mountain and how sweet and pure the water was. We did find that box spring and after many hours of cleaning the old stone box out, the water did run clean. We have heard stories of it being the happiest place on earth.

The building has seen better days. The schoolhouse is one large room with the remains of the chimney flue. The windowpanes have been broken by vandals. The building is no longer plumb and level. The building leans and stone pillars in the foundation are crumbling. The raised platform at the front of the room sags in the middle. Remains of a painted black board can still be seen. The school is constructed with hand-sawed timber and square nails. The old clapboards are rotting and the white paint is slowly peeling away. The concrete steps are broken and nature is trying really hard to take the old building.

Our family continues to enjoy the old school house as a gathering spot. Every Thanksgiving the family comes together to give thanks and enjoy a festive meal at our mountain retreat. We also gather at the old building for family photos. The old place now serves as a muse for me to photograph in the snow and in the springtime with all new green growth and blooming dogwoods. I love it in fall when the autumn’s hardwood foliage surrounds the schoolhouse. I even photograph it under the Milky Way.

One day we will likely find the old schoolhouse has fallen into complete disrepair. History and photographs will be the only thing that remains of the Snow Lick Mountain School. Ancient memories of children playing and reciting their lessons will eventually fade, but until that time our family will serve as the keepers of the old building and its history, and it will remain a local landmark.

Linda Henderson
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