1899, during the Territorial period, folks west of Stillwater built the one-room Pleasant Valley country school. Pleasant Valley was one of 5,641 the new state’s districts – on average one school every 3.5 miles. The average child would have a walk of less than two miles to school. The Pleasant Valley school functioned through 1941. In the 1980s the Pleasant Valley School Foundation restored the building and the two outhouses.During the school year, third and fourth-grade students arrive with lunch pails, wearing 19th Century clothing. Teachers, dressed in period clothing, oversee classes. Students use quill pens to practice their penmanship. They study McGuffey’s readers and do arithmetic on slates. At recess they go outside to roll hoops with a T-stick, run sack races and play games popular a century ago. Untended woods shield the east and south from urban Stillwater. This needs to be periodically cut back to give access to school buses and vehicle parking. On weekends Centennial Rotarians help out with that, as needed.
Pictured are David Thomas, Jim Trapp, Bob Darcy, Jim Motes and Steve Mayo.