Guthrie County Historical Village

Original exterior boards and stone foundation.

Beaver Independent School

2004

The following information is from History of Guthrie and Adair Counties, Iowa, 1884. pgs. 534-5.

The first school in Beaver township was taught by Thomas M. Coleman, in a room of the residence of Lemuel P. Coleman. This school was opened about the 1st of December, 1857, and continued to the 1st of the following March. There were about twenty scholars enrolled, among whom were the following named: John F. Branson and three of his children -- David, Catherine, and Sarah; Samuel, William, John, and Jesse Mains; Joseph M., Alice, and Rosanna Coleman, Elizabeth Patterson, and Elijah Miller.

The first school-house was built in 1858, on the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section 34, township 79, range 31, under the following circumstances:

The school-district was organized in 1857, with Henry Mains as president of the school board, and Thomas M. Coleman as its secretary, and this board ordered the erection of a log school-house, each settler to furnish his share of the logs, but before it was finished, it was determined to have a frame building and in the fall of 1858, a frame structure, 16x16 feet in size was erected by Thomas M., and Francis M. Coleman, at a cost to the district of $200. Thomas Coleman was the first teacher here, for the first two terms. This historic building is now used as a granary by Mr. Coleman. Before there was any school taught here, the children of the settlers attended school in Jackson township, in a log house on the present site of the school-house of Pleasant Hill independent district. A new school-house has just been finished (1884) in this district.

Guthrie County Historical Village