Old school learning: Educating students all in one room

ELDORA – One-room schoolhouses used to dot the Hardin County landscape, with one built no more than four miles from the next. In fact, according to the Iowa Department of Education, Iowa had the most one-room schoolhouses of any other state in the union, numbering 12,000 to 14,000 at one time. The last one closed its doors in 1967, through a legislative decree.

Today, there are approximately 2,800 one-room country schools still standing in Iowa, some are museums, houses, garages or nearly reclaimed by Mother Nature.