Brownhelm School Open House (Part 1)

In an earlier post (which you can read here) I took you to the township I grew up in and showed you the old Brownhelm School. Well, for the first time ever I was able to go inside for an open house to view the work that the historical society has been doing to bring the school back to its former glory. It was a really neat experience exploring the building and talking to some of the former students that had actually attended school here.

The brief history of the school is as follows:

In 1889 the original red brick school was built on the property. It was only a single room schoolhouse (as most still were at the time) and you can still see one of the outer walls on the right side of the above picture (it is the brighter brick with the pilasters). In 1905 an addition was added to the west side of the building and the current roof was added (there were two front entrances at this point, which are now covered by the current brick facade). The building was once again expanded upon in 1922 when the flat roof portion at the back was added to include a gymnasium/auditorium and a few more classrooms on the second floor (this portion starts back where the white door is opened). The school was originally part of the Brownhelm School District and then was merged with the Firelands School District. The school was officially closed in 1987.

Scan of the school's additions. (Vermilion Views)

The Brownhelm Township Historical Society has a 99 year lease on the building and is renovating it one room at a time in hopes to preserve some of the past and use the auditorium for township meetings and events. Let's step inside shall we?

I will apologize up front for some of the darker or grainier photographs as my camera does not do well in low light.

The side entrance.

The gym/auditorium from the stage.

Another angle of the gym. It was very small compared to what we have today.

Scale used for wrestling (assumed).

Notice the old see-saw below the flag.

Stage that makes this gym also an auditorium.

I just liked this picture. Okay, next room!

Back in the stairwell being "artistic" and stuff.

This is one of the (mostly) renovated rooms.

Pictures of all the former schools in the district lined one of the chalkboards.

You can barely read it, but the memory written closest to us says "My son Dan spent a lot of time on the log". I later found out from one of the class of 1965 graduates that "the log" was actually a long log on the playground used for kids that behaved poorly to sit on while everyone else played.

Close up on the dunce hat. As a frequent "corner sitter" in school I'm pretty sure this hat would have had to of been an extra large.

Teachers desk with the "Betsy Ross" version of our flag.

The piano. Back in the day a lot of classrooms served multiple purposes so it was not uncommon to have music class in the same room as government. Moving on...

This room looks like it is being used to display historical documents and objects.

It is odd to me to see varsity jackets and/or sweaters that have a "B" on them.

Trophies of the past. You won't see many current ones in the Firelands display case.

What are these ancient objects?

Old yearbooks.

The finished bathroom on the west side of the building. Notice the exam table in the corner?

At first I couldn't figure this out. I must have had a perplexed look on my face, because one of the graduates began explaining how the nurse would use the bathroom as an exam room for sick students. One of those "multipurpose rooms" again.

As I walked back down the hallway I began wondering if I was allowed upstairs. There was nothing blocking my way so I decided to take a look.

Part 2 of this post will show the mostly unfinished second floor of the school. This portion of the building was gutted (exposing all the good historical stuff that I love) and left to deteriorate up until this point.

Stay tuned...