One Room School House at Calico Ghost Town

by Floyd Snyder

Title

One Room School House at Calico Ghost Town

Artist

Floyd Snyder

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

One Room School House at Calico Ghost Town by Floyd Snyder

What you are seeing here is a replica, built in the early 1950’s. Old photographs were used in order to match the architecture as closely as possible, however this replica is about one-third less than the size of the original!

Calico’s first school operated out of a boarding house until the new school was built. Overall, the “Calico School District” ran from a fall term in 1882 until fall of 1899 when Calico experienced its decline as a mining boom town.

From the Calico School District records, as many as an average of 30 pupils would be enrolled for a class term, with an average daily attendance of about half that amount! Monthly teacher’s salaries ranged from $70 to $110. In comparison, the average silver miner’s wage was three dollars a day.

Most of the children who attended were the sons & daughters of the merchants in Calico since many of the miners did not have families.

Mrs. Lucy Lane, long time resident of Calico, actually attended the old one-room school when she came here in 1885. According to her, the Calico school house was also used for church services! The school house was used for Sunday School as well, according to the Calico Print newspaper, and religious services during occasional week nights. In an interview with Mrs. Lane, she was asked, “What games were played by the children in school?” and her answer was, “Catch the ball, blind man’s bluff, drop the handkerchief, run sheep run, toss the bean bag, marbles, etc.”

Calico’s last school teacher, Mrs. Margaret Kincaid Oliver, is buried here at the Calico Cemetery.

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April 10th, 2020

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