From Reading and Writing to Restoration

The schoolteacher’s desk is waiting for a fresh apple. The wooden desks, the stove, and the blackboards all stand ready, as they were in the 1890s.

One of the region’s last one-room schoolhouses is reopening.

But instead of reading, writing, and arithmetic, the San Timoteo Canyon Schoolhouse will feature family fun. Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Space District plans a grand opening of the 117-year-old schoolhouse as a historic park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 26.

Starting in April, parks officials plan to offer public programs from noon to 4 p.m. every Saturday at the schoolhouse at 31985 San Timoteo Canyon Rd. 

The first school in what later became Riverside County was built in remote San Timoteo Canyon west of Beaumont, in 1856. The wooden, one-room schoolhouse replaced that adobe school in 1894 and has been a landmark ever since. It's not a little red schoolhouse; instead, it has been restored to its original gray.

In the school's heyday about 25-40 children attended grades one through eight. They included the children of the Southern Pacific Railroad work crews. Trains still whistle their way frequently along the nearby train tracks.

In the 1920s the schoolhouse was used for Sunday school and during later decades the building was a center for community dances, plays, ice cream socials, and picnics, according to Riverside County’s published 1993 guide to county landmarks. 

But by the 1980s the building was deteriorating, teeming with bat colonies, and often targeted by vandals. The schoolhouse was a mess of disrepair and smashed-in windows and walls when longtime canyon resident Jerry Cody and his wife, Le’, led efforts starting in 1997 to save it. 

They won a battle to keep the schoolhouse in the canyon. They alerted the Sheriff’s Department whenever they saw vandals. They helped find ways to restore the schoolhouse inside and out, much with volunteered work. They never let up or gave up. 

They celebrated their 5oth wedding anniversary at the schoolhouse. When Le’ Cody died in 2008, her husband carried on, helped by some of their six children.

For example, Le’ Cody loved the stories of dances around a school maypole. The restored school has one. Saturday’s open-house celebration will include a maypole dance, park interpreter Jim Bowden said.

Although the building has undergone years of restoration work, finishing touches remain. The other day Bowden fired up the blacksmith forge at the Gilman Historic Ranch and Wagon Museum in Banning. He needed to make some hooks for the schoolhouse. 

An 1890s school seemed to call for an 1800s skill. Bowden hammered, working to shape the heated metal into hooks, one by one. Within a few days, the completed hooks were hanging in place in the schoolhouse.

The grand opening will feature two “schoolteachers” in period dress and 1800s-style games and toys for children. Families who attended school there are among those invited. 

And the flag that will fly on the school flagpole is one that has flown at the White House in Washington, D.C., Jerry Cody said.