Name This Peoria Landmark

Peoria Landmark #285

Scruff: “It’s the frontier village at Wildlife Prairie Park. My wife and I were just there on Sunday!”

Here’s some more aerial photos courtesy of Josh Harris…

Peoria County Landmark #284

Alice: Old Stone School at Stone School Rd and Rt. 116 between Farmington and Trivoli.

Precisely.

I could only find one reference to this building on a website named PeoriaCountyOneRoomSchools.com (I swear – there’s a website for everything!) This is the only source I could find and I hope that they don’t mind that I am reprinting it in its entirety. As happens so many times, maybe someone will stumble across this and add some more tidbits of info.

The Pea Ridge School more often called the “Stone” School has had interesting stories told of its beginning.

The building stood on a very important corner; originally, being on the trail that led to the gold fields of California and to which a rush was made immediately after 1848. On the south side of the road just opposite the schoolhouse stood a blacksmith shop where the travelers stopped to have the horses shod before continuing their westward journeys and so nearly all the time an encampment was pitched on the corner similar to our more modern tourist caps except that the tourist of those days came in covered wagons while now they drive cars. (This tiny little town was called Pea Ridge.)

Before the days of the Civil War a log school was built and used in this district. Before this time, the pupils of the neighborhood went to the little log school taught by Maria Harkness over in district 30. (Harkness Grove) The stone building, which is now being used, was built after the log building had been used for about ten years and had become too small to accommodate the large enrollment. This new building was erected about 1864 and has been in service since that time. The room was heated at first by a large stove in the center of the room and the seats were crowded around three sides of the stove. Now a modern heating and ventilating system have replaced this stove. The seats were benches in the earlier days and these have gone through a series of changes.

Double seats were place in the room shortly after the Civil War. Then when it became known that single seats were better a set of these were arranged in rows in the building, all of the same size and then later it was discovered that the younger students should have smaller seats, a graded set of seats was place as they can be found now if one were to Double seats were place in the room shortly after the Civil War.

The building was turned into a home in 1950 and owned by Russell Deal. The walls are two foot thick. The floors at the time it was converted into a home were within a half-inch of being perfectly level. Inside measurements are 22 x 30 feet. It is constructed of limestone keyed in.
Laura Jones

Peoria County Landmark #283

I was reading over the National Historic Registry list for Peoria County when I ran across an item that I had never heard of. Pleasant Grove School, in Eden, Il, .6 miles west of Eden Rd, on Pleasant Grove Rd. In other words, just past Hanna City and a mile or so south of 116. Definitely a place you have to search out to find.

It was added to the National Registry in 1994. Here are a few highlights from the application (I don’t want to retype the whole thing, but it is an interesting read).

Pleasant Grove School was originally constructed in 1856 as a one-room schoolhouse, located on a wooded knoll adjacent to an existing church (removed, 1951) and cemetery. The schoolyard is separated from the cemetery by a cement block wall along the west side (constructed, 1913) and a wire fence along the south. The original grove of oak, hickory, and maple trees no longer remains on this portion of the knoll and the schoolyard is open except for a few young deciduous trees and one large pine tree. A handpump-type well is located on the west side of the building. A wood outhouse remains off the schoolyard in the southeast portion of the adjacent cemetery.

Logan Township Pleasant Grove Cemetery Association, Inc., which now owns the building and grounds, is comprised for the most part of fifth-generation descendants of the original pioneer settlers of this area which was once called “Kimzey’s Close” after the three brothers who settled near Pleasant Grove between 1835 and 1839.

The stone construction and workmanship of the building are its most outstanding features. The school is constructed of native limestone from a time of the earliest use of this material locally.

Additional Photos:

…one of the adjacent Pleasant Grove Cemetery

…and one dated 1920. The schoolhouse is on the left. On the right is what I presume is the 1869 church building which was removed in 1951.