Another piece of history of Shalersville has officially been preserved. The Shalersville Historical Society held a dedication ceremony on Sunday afternoon to officially open the lone remaining schoolhouse from the 19th century.
“It is an important part of history,” SHS co-founder and President Ron Kotkowski told The Weekly Villager. “I have always felt that you need to preserve history, so you don’t make mistakes from the past and learn the history of how schools were run back in the day and how life was back in the day. I think it helps society before.”
The SHS officially completed its remodeling of the surviving schoolhouse building on July 6 and the schoolhouse is now officially open to the community for viewing. The SHS invited the community to assemble for a potluck lunch to commemorate the building’s grand opening.
In addition to much of the community being attendance, former Ohio State Representative Gail Pavliga, who helped secure a $225,000 grant for Shalersville to use for part of the remodeling of the schoolhouse, was also in attendance.
Kotkowski offered a brief introduction to the community, specifically acknowledging the efforts of all of those who aided the SHS’s efforts in moving the building from its original location and restoring it to its former glory.
Pavliga then gave a brief speech, talking about how Shalersville secured the one-time strategic fund grant, which became an essential tool in its remodeling of the building.
“We had a pot of money that was historic in the State and it was called the one-time srategic fund”, Pavliga told the audience “and that is where I found out there were all these things we were able to get money for; we still had to meet certain parameters. After meeting the parameters we were able to get money for this project.”
Pavliga added that she personally made the trip to Shalersville to meet with the SHS and the township trustees and things came together quickly. Most of the money that the SHS used from the one-time strategic fund was applied to painting the exterior and interior of the building.
The former state representative also lauded Shalersville for its dedication to preserving its history, not just for nostalgia but also as a teaching point for the present.
“One thing we need is to be able to preserve our history because it tells about yesterday, today and tomorrow. It is something that is necessary to learn where we come from, where we are and even where we hope to go, but mostly to learn about our past and the legacy that came before us,” she said.
According to Kotkowski, the schoolhouse that now sits on Shalersville Township property was one of nine one-room schoolhouses that existed in the 19th century, having been built in 1870.
The SHS President added that eight of the schoolhouses were decommissioned in 1905 and consolidated into a larger building, with only one remaining open for several more years, which was located on the corner of Diagonal and Frost Road.
Although the schoolhouse that the SHS preserved was decommissioned in 1905, it remained on State Route 44 and was eventually converted into a farmhouse by a family after their original farmhouse burned down.
Kotkowski said that the former schoolhouse continued to be of use until 2022 until Dick Bonner, owner of Bonner Farms Beef & Market, purchased the property for commercial development and donated the building to the SHS.
“As soon as he bought it, I called him and said, “Hey I think your property is worth more without the house and would you consider donating to us? and he said yes,” Kotkwoski recalled.
Kotkowski said that the SHS sought to move the house to their property, which already was home to a former chapel and the original first house of Shalersville, which has been converted into a historical museum.
The SHS began moving the building in 2023, and the entire project lasted two years, including having to close State Route 44 for an extended period to complete the move.
“We had to gut the inside, we had to raise the ceiling back up to its original height,” Kotkowski said. “We had to take a staircase out, we had to put the windows back where they were originally, and after they had all been remodeled and moved, we had to re-side the house. The backwall is the original siding but the rest is all duplicate siding.”
With the former schoolhouse building now having a new home, Kotkowksi said that he has already received interest from local school districts in scheduling field trips to the building to demonstrate what it was like to attend school in the days of the frontier.
“We are very happy and very proud of it,” he added. “This will preserve the history that a lot of us grew up hearing about for generations to come. A lot of kids don’t know what it was like to have a schoolhouse where you had a bucket and you went out and got water in. Everyone drank out of the same drinker.”
