November 22, 2024
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New donation helps Oswego museum tell the story of the community’s growth

By Shaw Local News Network
A student desk from the old Church School that closed 63 years ago is now part of the Little White School Museum’s “Education and Population Boom” exhibit that tells visitors the story of the Oswego School District’s evolution from a small, largely rural district to one of the largest school districts in Illinois.

A student desk from the old Church School that closed 63 years ago is now part of the Little White School Museum’s “Education and Population Boom” exhibit that tells visitors the story of the Oswego School District’s evolution from a small, largely rural district to one of the largest school districts in Illinois. (photo provided by the Little White School Museum)

A new donation to Oswego’s Little White School Museum is helping tell the story of the community’s growth and its effect on Oswego’s schools.

On March 2, Rebecca Smith Hurd donated a student desk that was used at Church School before the rural school--the last still operating in the Oswego School District--closed for the last time in the spring of 1960. The desk has been added to the museum’s permanent “Education and Population Boom” exhibit.

“The desk will help visitors appreciate the changes that have occurred in the school district during the last 60 years as it grew from a small rural district to one of the largest in Illinois,” explained museum director Roger Matile.

The desk was patented in 1930 by G.H. Abbott and manufactured by Woodruff & Edwards, Inc., of Elgin, Ill., with a cast iron under assembly and maple seat and desktop.

Church School--informally named because it’s right across the road from the Wheatland United Presbyterian Church--was established in the early 1860s on land owned by Stephen Findlay. Classes were first held in a wood frame school building that was replaced in 1929 by a larger brick structure with the most modern features of that era including indoor bathrooms, central heating and even a fireplace.

Located just across the border from Oswego Township in Will County’s Wheatland Township, the school was eventually officially named Will County Grade School District 38. Students in grades one through eight attended the school. But with the end of World War II, parents began lobbying to send junior high-aged students into town schools where there were more educational opportunities. So at the start of the 1949-1950 school year, the rural district’s seventh and eighth graders were bused into Oswego.

That was the era of on-going school consolidation when the state of Illinois began actively pressuring rural one-room school districts to merge with larger in-town districts, both to give students more educational opportunities and to save tax dollars--on a per-pupil basis, rural schools were more expensive to run than larger consolidated districts. As a result, starting in the 1953-54 school year, intermediate students were also bused to Oswego. Primary grades one through three attended classes at Church School until the school finally closed in the spring of 1960, the last rural building in the Oswego School District. It was eventually auctioned off by the school district and is a private home today.

The Little White School Museum, 72 Polk St., is a joint project of the not for profit Oswegoland Heritage Association and the Oswegoland Park District. Regular hours are Thursday and Friday, 2 to 6:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and Monday, 4 to 9 p.m. Admission is free, but donations are always appreciated.

For more information, call the museum at 630-554-2999, visit littlewhiteschoolmuseum.org or email info@littlewhiteschoolmuseum.org.