Iowa Country Schools
The Country School is an American icon. Once ubiquitous across Iowa's landscape, one- two-room country schools are quickly disappearing. Although a few in Amish communities are still in educational use, nearly every historic country school in Iowa has been repurposed. Luckily, many have been reused as country school museums, giving children today a lesson in Iowa's educational history. The Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance is dedicated to preserving the state's country schools. Board member William Sherman is the organization's resident expert on country schools and organizes a country school conference each fall, bringing together country school preservationists from across the Midwest.
Annual Country School Conference
The 10th annual Iowa country school preservation conference will be held Oct. 2-3, 2009, at the Heartland Acres Agribition Center in Independence, Iowa. Join fellow country school enthusiasts for educational sessions, networking, and tours. This year's conference features a talk by Leidulf Mydland of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research and other speakers from across the country, including: Dale Williams (Reed School Director, Wisconsin Historical Society), Mark Dewalt (Winthrop University, South Carolina), Susan Webb (Birmingham, Alabama). Tours include the Wapsipinicon Mill and Little Red Schoolhouse Antique Shop in Independence on Friday and Amish Schools and a country school museum in Fredericksburg on Saturday. Conference costs are $30 for Friday and $15 for Saturday, including lunch, tours, and handouts. Register by September 24. Download the brochure 
(176 KB). For additional information, please contact Bill Sherman at wsherman41@gmail.com
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The 9th annual Iowa country school preservation conference, Perceptions of the Country School, was held Oct. 10-11, 2008, in Ames, Iowa.
Iowa's Country School Directory
The information in this directory was collected several years. The information came from surveys that were filled out and returned. Some efforts were made to confirm information, but we have not double-checked everything. We assumed the information given in the surveys was accurate. Please check with the contact listed before making a long, special trip to visit a school site. This websiste will be updated as information is collected, so please contact either the Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance or Bill Sherman at 1-800-434-2039 or wsherman41@gmail.com with any incorrect information you discover, whether it is your museum site or not.
There are hundreds of former one-room schools that have been turned into businesses, and thousands are in use as homes. This directory is only of those schools that are being preserved as museums. The schools are organized by Tourism area (Western, Central, Eastern), and then alphabetically by county and township school name (e.g. Newport #3), where available. The parent organization is listed under the name of the school. The years listed after the school name are the time period depicted at the museum. Schools with a narrower time period normally give more focused and accurate information. At the bottom of each school listing is a series of codes that classify that school according to a code developed by national one-room school historian Andrew Gulliford in America's Country Schools.
This code consists of:
- P = some work has been done to preserve the school
- M = the school is maintained as a museum
- H = students are brought to the school for history programs
- CC = the school is used as a community center for meetings
- NR = the school is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
- V = the school is used as a voting center.
Tour the schools:
Western Touring Area (46 sites)
Central Touring Area (43 sites)
Eastern Touring Area (68 sites)
One-Room Schools (non-museums)
Acknowledgements
The Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance wishes to thank everyone who took the time to respond to the survey that makes this guide possible and the many people who gave us suggestions. This project is funded, in part, by a grant from the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, Iowa Community Cultural Grant Program.
(July 2002)