Property Record
19312 COUNTY LINE RD (CTH KR/1ST ST)
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Union School |
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| Other Name: | Ravinia School, Union Grove Boy Scout Troop 350 Clubhouse |
| Contributing: | |
| Reference Number: | 12276 |
| Location (Address): | 19312 COUNTY LINE RD (CTH KR/1ST ST) |
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| County: | Racine |
| City: | |
| Township/Village: | Yorkville |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
| Town: | 3 |
| Range: | 21 |
| Direction: | E |
| Section: | 31 |
| Quarter Section: | SE |
| Quarter/Quarter Section: | SE |
| Year Built: | 1890 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 197520132019 |
| Historic Use: | school-one to six room |
| Architectural Style: | Front Gabled |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Clapboard |
| Architect: | |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| National Register Listing Date: | |
| State Register Listing Date: |
| Additional Information: | 2019- "This former schoolhouse stands at the northwest corner of County Line Road (CH KR/1st Street) and Colony Avenue (USH 45) in Union Grove, Yorkville Township, along the boundary of Racine and Kenosha Counties. It was previously inventoried as the Ravinia School, and noted as School House #11, but those names were not found in historic research conducted for this survey. It is presently the Union Grove Boy Scout Troop 350 Clubhouse. Records have not clarified when this building was constructed." The first schoolhouse in Union Grove was built in 1846; it was “called Union School because it brought together several outlying school districts” (Union Grove 2019). The 1858 county plat map notes a schoolhouse (SH) nearly one mile north of this building’s location, closer to the town limits of Union Grove. In a biographical sketch of early Union Grove resident Stiles Moe, it is noted that after his family’s arrival at the age of ten, in the 1840s he “received valuable training under” teachers who “were college-bred men” although “the schoolhouse was a primitive log structure” (Lyman 1916: 59)." In the United States, the “notion of tax-supported free public education became widely accepted” in the 1860s (McIntosh 2005). In 1869 the Wisconsin legislature “passed a law authorizing towns to adopt by vote the ‘township system of school government.’ Under this system each town becomes one school district,” and existing districts within them become sub-districts (Western Historical Co. 1879: 146). The school boards were governed by elected townspeople; they set taxes, bought supplies, and hired and paid teachers. In the 1870s school districts throughout the country “began to replace the old schoolhouses with ones built according to architectural designs readily available from plan books.” White-painted school buildings became increasingly common (McIntosh 2005: 146-147). Racine County tax records do not list a date of construction for this schoolhouse. This building likely replaced the original Union school sometime around 1900. A school is indicated at this location in the Yorkville Township plat maps published between 1878 and 1934, although they do not indicate whether the building was in use. One-room rural schoolhouses built around the turn of the twentieth century in Wisconsin shared many of the same characteristics. The form of the schoolhouse is similar to several contemporary one-room schools with minimal embellishment, as shown in the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) digital photograph collections. The typical plan varied in depth, with some schools containing only two side windows and others at least five, but all were rectangular with a front gable roof and clapboard siding. Historic photographs show that typical foundations were stone and windows were six-over-six sash. The central front door had a transom window, and a single brick chimney was set at the rear of the building. Photographs reveal that some of the schools’ windows had outer shutters that could be closed. Few schools share a similar hipped-roof entry porch, although others have enclosed entry bays, bell towers, and other minor design modifications. Schoolhouses that featured embellishments such as “shutters, porches, pillars, vestibules, and belfries” were often a reflection of the town’s prosperity (McIntosh 2005). There are many examples of rural one-room schoolhouses that are similar in form to this schoolhouse and that have photographs in the WHS. Most photographs are undated and come from the Superintendent of Schools: Rural School Records, circa 1867-1965 collection: • Liberty School District #3 (image ID 66260) – nearly identical • Jamestown School District #3 (image ID 66250) – nearly identical, but two side windows • Jamestown School District #4 (image ID 66252) – nearly identical, but interior chimney • Smelser School District #5 (image ID 66296) – nearly identical, but four side windows • Unidentified Rural Schoolhouse (image ID 66330) – nearly identical • District #9 Clifton Schoolhouse (image ID 66343) – similar hipped roof entry porch • Barnum School, Crawford County (image ID 82536) – nearly identical, but five side windows, front chimney • One-room Schoolhouse, Dane County, 1902 (image ID 103254) – nearly identical, but two front doors The 1912 publication Better Rural Schools Means a Better Wisconsin described schoolhouses like this in Union Grove as “old, bare” and “cheerless, badly lighted frame houses” and encouraged their replacement with more substantial buildings. By 1916, several state laws had been passed in order to improve the conditions of rural schools, including sanitation, equipment, and quality of teachers. At the time, there was “insufficient provision for proper schoolhouse construction” as “plans were not standardized or sufficiently supervised.” Consolidation was encouraged in association with improved, larger schools. State laws were implemented to “make it advantageous for a district to discontinue its own school and provide transportation” to a new facility further away (Dept. of Public Instruction 1917: 51-59). A new Union Grove grade school was built closer to town limits in 1925 on 14th Avenue; it is shown in the 1924 plat map, one block south of the 1858 school location. Records indicate there was only one operating elementary school in 1938; at the time, it did not have “any clerical help in the office and there was only one custodian” (Union Grove 2019). The building’s use over much of the twentieth century is unknown. It presently serves as the Union Grove Boy Scouts Troop #350 clubhouse." "The small rectangular building has a front-gable roof and a single end-wall brick chimney ion the rear wall. The front (south) façade has a central doorway with a concrete slab front stoop surmounted by a hipped roof overhang with turned wood post supports and decorative corner brackets. Both side walls have three evenly spaced windows; all have been boarded over (some appear to have hinges and may be able to swing open). The roofs are clad in modern metal and the walls are narrow wood clapboard. The building’s foundation may be stone; a top layer of concrete obscures original materials. The interior was not accessible at the time of survey, but troop photographs from 2017 indicate at least some windows inside have been retained, though the sash windows are modern replacement. The front door is also a replacement, it is a style typically used for residential purposes. The original 1974 survey noted a transom window above the doorway, but it was likely covered over when the new door was installed (it is not evident in 2013 or 2017 photographs). Photographs on the Boy Scout Troop #350 Facebook page include some views of the interior of the building. The single-room space has been retained, although closets on either side of the doorway have been added and/or modified. The floors have been re-covered with manufactured wood planks and the walls are faced in plywood boarding. Modern electric conduits run along the walls and feed a modern heating unit and fluorescent lights. In photographs the wood stove at the rear of the space appears historic but not original; in 1905, box stoves “were discarded from the elementary school and pot-bellied upright, coal-burning stoves were installed” (Union Grove 2019). No other original interior materials have been retained." The building is a typical rural Wisconsin schoolhouse built near the end of the nineteenth century. It reflects the period of buildings that replaced the first “primitive log structure” schools, and before larger schools were built to standardized specifications to serve larger populations. Research has not revealed evidence that the school is associated with a specific event in history, but the school holds associations with turn-of-the-century rural school programs and the Wisconsin public education system. There have been 25 one-to-six room schools in Racine and Kenosha Counties recorded in the Wisconsin AHI (the status of these buildings was not researched as a part of this project). This is the only ca 1870s-1890s one-room wood-clad schoolhouse, while nearly all the rest are larger brick structures. The school may hold sufficient significance to be eligible under NRHP Criterion A. Research has not revealed any associations between the schoolhouse and a significant individual or group of people. The building is not eligible under Criterion B. The schoolhouse lacks an overall style as a typical wood-framed, one-room schoolhouse built in the 1890s when it was likely built. Consistent with design trends at the time, the building exhibits a few Queen Anne elements, although they are limited to the turned wood post and ornamental wood corner brackets of the hipped-roof front porch. The building does not embody the distinctive characteristics of a type or method of construction, nor does it possess high artistic values. Research has not identified an architect or builder and therefore it does not represent the work of a master. The building form is distinctive and recognizable as a typical one rural one-room schoolhouse, and the building may be eligible under Criterion C. The exterior of the school retains several aspects of its integrity. The school remains in its original location, and its placement at the corner of a major crossroads in a rural agricultural setting is a significant feature. The building retains its overall design. The form and plan is intact, the original fenestration is obscured, but retained, and the interior remains a single open space. Inside, the integrity of materials suffers: the walls and flooring have been re-covered, there are no original light fixtures, and the fluorescents are modern replacements. The wood burning stove at the rear of the building is not original (it is known a coal stove was installed in 1905). Windows and doors are replacements, and the original transom window has been removed. The structure itself retains its original building materials and its exterior walls retain narrow wood lap siding, hipped-roof porch roof, and turned wood posts and brackets; Queen Anne features of the front porch exhibit the aspect of workmanship. The school has integrity of feeling and association, and it evokes the historic character associated with rural education at the turn of the twentieth century. Although the integrity of materials suffers, including interior walls and flooring, changes to elements such as windows, doors, flooring and roof materials are reversible, and can be replaced to be more in keeping with the historic character. The school is significant within the Education state historical context. Its period of significance is from its time of construction ca 1870-1890 to 1925, when the new, larger elementary school opened in Union Grove village limits. The Union School House is recommended eligible for listing in the NRHP under Criterion A, for its significance as a public schoolhouse in a rural agricultural area. It may also be eligible under Criterion C as a representative 1870s-1890s rural wood-frame one-room schoolhouse building type." FRONT QUEEN ANNE ENTRANCE PORCHTRANSOM OVER DOOR Resurveyed November 2013; changes include the replacement of the front door and the addition of a new metal roof. 2013- "This 1-story Front Gabled school house was constructed c.1870. It is rectangular in plan with wood clapboard walls and a metal-clad gable roof. The front elevation faces south and is symmetrical in plan with a central front door. The front door is a modern replacement and is located within an entry porch with a concrete slab foundation, turned wood supports and a metal-clad hipped roof. Three regularly-spaced window openings are located along the side elevations; these have been boarded over. A red brick chimney protrudes from the roof peak near. The building's interior was not available for viewing during the course of this survey. The current property owner is Union Grove Joint School District No.1. In May of 2014, district administrator Brenda Stevenson indicated that a wood stove may remain in the building, but no other original material remains. The open classroom space has been retained as the property is currently used as a meeting space for a local Boy Scout troop." -"USH 45: 18th Ave to STH 50", WisDOT#3200-01-02, Prepared by Gail Klein, (2013). |
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| Bibliographic References: | Department of Public Instruction. "Education in Wisconsin: A Two-year Analysis of Educational Problems and Progress in the State of Wisconsin (1917). Retrieved from https://www.google.com/books/edition/Education_in_Wisconsin/pUJMAAAAMAAJ (1/30/20). Facebook. "BSA Troop 350" Page. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/T350UnionGroveWI/ (1/20/20). Lyman, Frank H. The City of Kenosha and Kenosha County, Wisconsin; a Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement (1916). Chicago: SJ Clarke Co. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_City_of_Kenosha_and_Kenosha_County_W/Flw0AQAAMAAJ (1/30/20). McIntosh, Phyllis. "ONE-ROOM SCHOOLS: An American Tradition" English Teaching Forum (Vol 43 Num 2 2005) Retrieved from https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/05-43-2-h.pdf (1/30/20). Union Grove. "History" website (2019). Retrieved from https://www.uniongrove.net/visitors/history/ (1/30/20). Western Historical Co. History of Racine & Kenosha Counties (1879). Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/historyracinean00cogoog (1/30/20) Wisconsin Historical Society. "Wisconsin Rural School Survey Records, 1931-1933" Image Gallery Essay. Retrieved from https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS15826 (1/30/20). |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |