JOHNSTON -- More than a century ago it was considered the town's spiffiest new school, but lately the Belknap School building has been showing its age.
The roof has a hole in it. Birds make their home in the wood near the roof. Paint is peeling. And it hasn't been used in about three years.
If the Johnston Historical Society gets its way, things could change for the school.
During a meeting on March 11, the Town Council decided to deed the town-owned building to the society. The group, once an extensive cleanup and repair project has been done, hopes to open it to the public, said society president Louis McGowan.
The building, near the intersection of Atwood and Greenville Avenues, was last used as the home of American Legion Post 92.
"They haven't used it in about three years," McGowan said as he showed visitors around last week. "There's only a few [members] left."
The one-room school had served the village of Belknap. At one time it housed children in grades one through eight who lived in a village primarily known for its cider mill and farms, he said.
"There were separate boys' and girls' entrances," he said. "It was used as a school until the 1930s."' When the school closed in 1937, the children were sent to other town schools.
Actually the school closed twice.
McGowan said it first shut in 1933. But parents were unhappy that their children could not attend school close to home, so the town reopened it. It closed for good in 1937. "There were only three kids going there then," he said.
The veterans group started using the building after World War II, McGowan said.
Now the former school looks like someone just locked the door one night and walked away. Three glass ashtrays, complete with cigarette butts, are on the bar, as is a typed list of blood donors and a box of poker chips.
The most dominant feature is an old bar. "That's going into the dumpster," said Dan Brown, the society treasurer. Also, probably headed to the same location is a mirror behind the bar and some stools and folding chairs.
The building has a dirt cellar and the society members are now trying to figure out exactly what is down there. "We found an old roulette wheel in the basement," Brown said.
Some paneling that's been removed has exposed what society members think are the chalk boards that were used in the school. Behind the building, members think they have found the foundations for the old outhouses.
A set of steep steps leads to a loft and the building's bell tower, which is still standing. The Marion Mohr Library owns the bell, McGowan said. "We're trying to get it on a long-term loan."
After the veterans took it over, they built a small kitchen area adjacent to the building. Brown said the society might use the area as a museum of school historical items.
McGowan said the society must rely primarily on grants from private foundations to restore the building. But before that, McGowan said, a contractor will be brought in to supply a cost estimate.
If the society succeeds in its restoration plan, the Belknap School could return to its old glory. According to a newspaper article from 1892, the school was one that would replace several "old and wretched" schools in town. "The old Belknap School was the most antiquated in the town," the article said. That school apparently dated from 1790.
The new Belknap School -- the one dating from 1892 -- was, according to the newspaper story, 23 feet by 37 feet, constructed with exterior clapboards except for the upper section, which was to have "fancy shingles." It was to house about 40 children.
That school was looked on as a healer of sorts. It seems that there were divisions in the Belknap community, apparently brought on by the poor condition of the first school.
"There will be rejoicing and a complete burial of the old factional feeling in the district when the new school house is completed..." read the newspaper story. The writer predicted the new schoolhouse would have "a good influence on adults as well as on the children, who will gain the primary elements of education within its walls."
So if the historical society succeeds, people may be able to see what school life was like two centuries ago.
