One-room schools once dominated Butler County rural areas

Last week's subzero temperatures reminded Vera Niggel of how she had to walk to the one-room school in northern Butler County she attended almost seven decades ago.

“You would have icicles coming out of your nose. It was a cold and windy walk. School was never delayed or canceled, and there were no buses to pick us up,” said Niggel, 75.

Winter made a big impression on Niggel, who walked about two miles to school for six years in all kinds of weather with her siblings.

“The ground would just crackle under our feet,” she said.

Niggel, of Concord, is a retired flight attendant. She is among a shrinking number of people in Butler County who attended one-room schools and among dozens of people whose photographs, documents and stories helped the Butler County Historical Society publish two books about them. The society is gathering information for a third book and is seeking contributions.

The society has prepared books on World War II, the Civil War and is compiling a book on World War I.

None, though, generated as much interest and buzz as the books about one-room schools, said historical society director Pat Collins.

“It was part of people's lives and different from school today,” Collins said.

“There are still many people around who attended these schools.”

The historical society first solicited information about one-room schools in 2009 and was unprepared for the response.

“There was a tremendous interest. We had people come in from other counties and states,” Collins said.

“One couple drove here from New Jersey with materials for us to scan. It took us three hours.”

The society's first book, “School's Out,” was published in 2010, and the second, “School's Over,” came out in 2012. The publication date for the third book, “School's Done,” has not been set.

A one-room school was the most common type of early education in rural sections of the county from the early 19th century until the consolidation and formation of school districts in the 1950s.

Some one-room schools were open for only a small number of years, especially during the 19th-century oil boom.

Because there are no complete records, the historical society does not have an accurate count of such schools.

Niggel is featured in the first book.

A coal-fired, potbelly stove heated the one-room Millinger School that Niggel attended in Oakland. There was no phone or electricity.

“The windows were our light,” she said. “That stove made it hot in there.”

Niggel's descriptions of her early education sound more like frontier life than the 20th century.

School was hard work, especially for teachers, who Niggel described as “also a janitor and a nurse, everything.”

“They cleaned snow. They had it pretty hard, compared to teachers today. I'm sure the pay was not good,” she said.

Older students carried coal or wood inside for the stove, while younger students cleaned blackboards and took erasers outside for dusting.

One-room schools in Butler County proliferated after passage of the state's 1834 Free School Act.

Cranberry's Sample School was built in 1874. It's on the front lawn of the Cranberry Township Municipal Center on Rochester Road.

It was one of six similar schools that served Cranberry. It's open to visitors from May to September.

The law was amended in 1874 to require that students walk no more than two miles to school, Collins said.

Butler County's first one-room school opened in 1799, before it was incorporated as a county. That occurred a year later.

The county's last five one-room schools, all near Slippery Rock, closed in 1963.

“It was a much simpler and less hectic time,” Niggel said.

“There was no technology at all. But we became educated. I wouldn't trade it for the world.”

Rick Wills is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7944 or rwills@tribweb.com.