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Old Haigler school becoming museum
HAIGLER -- A broken ankle last winter may have limited LaNeta Carlock's movement, but not her imagination.
During her recuperation, LaNeta and her husband, Stanley, drove Haigler's country roads, filling many otherwise tedious hours.
At a T-intersection southwest of Haigler, surrounded by winter-still fields and pastures, sat a small, square, dilapidated stucco building -- what was left of the one-room "67 South" country schoolhouse.
"Wouldn't it be neat ... ," LaNeta mused to Stan last winter, "to restore the old schoolhouse, for a museum ... ?"
LaNeta said her aunt taught school for years in Franklin, and had moved a one-room schoolhouse, to be turned into a museum, into Franklin.
LaNeta knew, through her aunt's experience, that the project was feasible. Stan knew, with his engineering experience, that the 67 South building could be moved.
And so it will be.
LaNeta didn't let seemingly high estimates to move the school house discourage her. She just kept hoping it would work out. And it did, when the Williams Brothers House Moving Co. in Hastings -- whose owners have ties to Haigler-area pioneers -- agreed to move the building for $5,000 -- half of most other estimates.
The Carlocks donated part of a city block to the village, so the schoolhouse will be located across the street from the village offices, and just a block from the village park.
A foundation has been poured, and the little schoolhouse will make its 3 1/2-mile trip some time in August.
A really fun fund-raiser produced about $3,000 when the Collicott sisters -- LaNeta and her sisters, Myrna Mulligan and Galena Webster, all of Haigler -- raised "bail" when they spent the night in Haigler's historic jail at alumni time last spring.
Coordinators have written for grants, submitting requests for funding to the Hansen and Peter Kiewit foundations.
Donations now total $11,500, LaNeta said. She estimates that the entire project -- which will span four years and include interior and exterior restoration once the schoolhouse is in town -- will cost about $30,000.
"When the project is completed, 67 South will be the only completely restored one-room schoolhouse in Dundy County," LaNeta said.
Dundy County once had 75 school districts, LaNeta said, and many, many one-room schoolhouses.
School District 67 South was created in 1893, and project coordinators think -- judging from construction techniques and square nails -- that the schoolhouse was built probably about 1897. The first courthouse records of the schoolhouse, with pictures, are in 1905.
Records indicate, LaNeta said, that the school once housed 27 students, in first through eighth grades, and one teacher.
The little frame-and-stucco schoolhouse sits at its original location, with short-grass prairie on the south and Steve and Jody Crouse's corn on the west, north and east.
"We wouldn't have a project at all," Stan told those gathered for a ceremonial groundbreaking July 17, "without the Crouse family.
The schoolhouse is in their cornfield, and they gave us the building."
Volunteers have shoveled out of the schoolhouse all the dirt and debris that have blown in since the last day of classes in 1945.
With the expertise of carpenters Ben and Jerry Shaw, they've replaced rotting joists, rebuilt the floor and stabilized the building for its move.
The roof has been covered with a tarp to protect it from rain -- and from the Crouses' center pivot irrigation water.
In town, the schoolhouse will be fitted with a new roof and new doors and windows. New siding will more closely resemble the original clapboard siding than the existing stucco does.
Project supporters have donated period items, including lanterns, a teacher's desk and students desks.
Dundy County's unofficial county historian and avid project support Laura Pearl Wall will donate the school's original flag pole.
LaNeta is awed by the support shown for the project, in the form of donated time, labor, materials, money and encouragement. She said that Southwest Public Power District will donate time, equipment and manpower when nine power lines have to come down as the little schoolhouse moves into town.
The Dundy Count sheriff's office will donate manpower to escort the moving structure down Avenue 314 and along Highway 34 into Haigler.
The Carlocks hope to turn the little schoolhouse into "The Cornerstone Museum," sharing a name with Haigler, which is tucked into the far southwest corner of Nebraska and nicknamed "the cornerstone" of the state.
Anyone interested in donating to the project can contact LaNeta, whom Stanley calls the project's "fund-raiser and public affairs official," at (308) 297-3226 or by email at: carlock@bwtelcom.net
Donations can be mailed to: Save 67 South School, P.O. Box 144, Haigler, NE 69030-0144.