Many Oregon public school students now routinely use iPads and other computer devices loaded with educational apps. Others struggle with writing in cursive form. How times have changed from the era before World War II, when devices consisted of chalk, pointers and pencils...when proper cursive styles were enforced with penmanship grades.

 

An education revolution, driven partly by greatly enhanced mobility, stands between today’s students and those of yesteryear. The early years of the 1900s saw the development of mass-produced cars at affordable prices. This fed the demand for better-paved roads as proponents sought to “Get Oregon Out of the Mud.” Modern travelers often fail to conceive of just how difficult it was to travel even a few miles on muddy, unpaved roads. And Oregon had precious few miles of paved roads in the 1800s and early 1900s.

 

Rural and small town schools were sited with this practical reality in mind. Students walked or rode on horseback or in a buggy to get to school. As a result, some Oregon counties each had well over 100 strategically located school districts, often centered around a one-room schoolhouse.

 

By the middle decades of the 1900s, paved roads had lessened the need for so many small schools. Buses could ferry students cheaply and effectively to larger and more efficient schools. A massive school consolidation movement swept through Oregon, in some cases merging 9 out of 10 school districts. The number of districts has dwindled to 197 in the entire state.

 

Many of the old one-room schoolhouses were repurposed as community centers, private schools or museum exhibits. Others were converted into private homes, torn down or allowed to degrade into ruins over the decades.

 

This exhibit takes a stroll through an earlier time in Oregon. It offers glimpses of old schoolhouses, students at work and play and the colorful life revolving around rural schools in the state.