State grant will fund inventory of 1868 West Boyer Valley School
Don Harrold, Executive Editor
editor@enterprisepub.com
The Harrison County Historical Village and Iowa Welcome Center has been awarded a $5,000 matching grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa to inventory and catalog the one-room schoolhouse on its grounds, along with the hundreds of books and other materials held inside it.
The award comes from a $25,000 statewide pool the state set aside for one-room schoolhouses, distributed in $5,000 increments, said Kim Crispin, the village's program manager. Harrison County was among the sites selected.
Because the award is a matching grant, it requires local funds or in-kind contributions alongside the state money. The village submitted a spending plan as part of its application, she said, and expects the award to cover what the project requires. Any money left unspent would return to the state.
The grant money will pay for someone to inventory and catalog the building and its contents. Matching funds will go toward glass display cases and a metal storage cabinet built for collections.
That second piece addresses a practical problem. The schoolhouse has no heat and no air conditioning.
"We are able to keep things without getting moldy," Crispin said. The new cabinet, she said, will let staff store material without moisture exposure and rotate items into the display cases rather than leaving the collection exposed year-round.
The building, known as the West Boyer Valley School, is original to Harrison County. It was built in 1868 and closed in 1960, according to Crispin, which puts its final classes within living memory for county residents. It was moved roughly a half mile to the museum grounds by Preston Niles, who founded the museum and whose collection still forms the bulk of what the village displays.
"I just think that's really interesting, that somebody thought that much about it to haul it here and preserve it," Crispin said.
Inside, the graduating class remains posted on the wall, and the room looks much as it did when it closed, with a few additions. Crispin, who has held the job a year and a half, said one-room schoolhouses draw visitors who seek them out specifically. "People follow them, and they search out one-room schoolhouses to visit," she said. "We have people come just to see the schoolhouse."
Asked why a resident with no particular interest in local history should see the money as well spent, Crispin pointed to preservation and to how quickly the era has receded. "It takes you back to an era that you probably can't even imagine," she said. "Like my kids, for example — they didn't grow up knowing that this is how their grandparents or great-grandparents went to school."
The schoolhouse sits on a larger campus that includes peddlers' wagons, an agriculture section, and a military collection with recently donated firearms. Crispin said the holdings also include a Bible that belonged to Custer's mother.
The village has no events scheduled this month. In October, staff will run several evenings of children's programming under the name Night at the Museum.
At Christmas, the village will mount a first-year display called Christmas Trees Through the Ages, tracing holiday trees from the 1850s to the present. "We have very little traffic in the winter," Crispin said, "so we thought we'd just do that kind of program."
The Harrison County Historical Village and Iowa Welcome Center is at 2931 Monroe Ave., Missouri Valley. For more information, call (712) 642-2114 or visit harrisoncountyparks.org.
