Going Back to School - Camping post #5

   The Iron County Museum is a complex of historic buildings just outside of Iron River, Michigan. We first toured it four years ago when we were camping at the nearby State Park. In the middle of July, on our yearly camping trip to the area this year, we visited the museum once again.

In a future post, I will share the other exhibits throughout the grounds, but today I’m only going to share the one-room schoolhouse.

The Pioneer Baumgartner school was built in 1896. Like many school buildings of the time, it was named for the person on whose land it was built. The Pioneer school was moved from its initial location to the museum grounds and restored in 1988.

I’ve been fascinated by one-room schoolhouses for two years. That was when I started writing my latest novel which has one of those schools as its main character.   

The schoolhouse in my book was built of brick around 1860 in a town that is in a vague location. I wanted it to be in northern Illinois or Indiana because that location would fit with the rest of the story. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any record of brick schoolhouses that far north and west in that time period. Ah, such is the quandary of the novelist! 

My goal is to finish writing this novel in the next week or so. Send me a message if you want to be one of the first to read the rough draft. 

In the meantime, best wishes to all students, teachers, bus drivers, and others who will be returning to modern schools in the next few weeks.

 The Iron County Historical Museum website: https://ironcountymuseum.org/