Other artifacts came in from around the state and country.Īlongside a yellowed wall-map of Ohio is a set of McGuffey’s reader charts, which were once a standard in schoolhouses. Glass cabinets display artifacts given to Gregory by residents whose ancestors attended the school, including stacks of books and an ornate wooden pencil box from the 1890s. Inside, the room is part classroom, part museum. Elzey built a new bell tower and laid down hickory floorboards, which had gone missing at the old site. The building has a new frame, expanded slightly to seat more students, but the bricks, windows, slate and door are original. “That building is as authentic as we can possibly make it with the materials that are left,” said Gregory, who teaches speech and television classes. Yesterday, their $80,000 project was finished. The city agreed, and Gregory took on the help of Elzey, a retired engineer with restoration experience. Rather than see it razed, Gregory raised enough money to move the building to Lincoln Elementary and restore it as a living-history classroom. To them, the building appeared to be no more than a run-down garage. He verified his hunch with historical records and then rushed to city offices, pleading with development officials to halt demolition of the brick structure. “I think that might be a one-room schoolhouse,” Gregory recalled thinking yesterday as he told the story to a crowd gathered for a dedication. The city was ready to raze it until the slate roof caught the attention of Lincoln High School teacher Tom Gregory. After he rushed among the rows of old-fashioned school desks yesterday, tidying the room and pushing open the shutters, Jan Elzey stepped outside to hang the final touch: a red, white and blue ribbon across the front door.Īn hour later, the ribbon had been cut, and the first crowd filed into the restored schoolhouse at Lincoln Elementary in Gahanna.īuilt in 1869, the one-room schoolhouse sat in disrepair last year on its site 2 miles to the north.
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