Old Fashioned School House San Diego Ca Area

The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL Order QUARTERLY
July 1960, Volume six, Number iii
Jerry MacMullen, Editor

Past Rollin Peirce

More three quarters of a century have passed since the first school-house was erected in the vicinity of Ramona.

I cannot recall whether or not information technology was a "Lilliputian Red School-Firm," but at any charge per unit, information technology was built on a hill on the old Ortega-Stokes Rancho, just above what now is the "Shangri-La" Ranch on the right hand of the road to Julian. Being the only school at the time between Poway and Julian, it was attended by the children of many of the pioneer families living west of Ballena — the Stokes, Warnocks, Swycaffers, Casners and Mulkins, and by the Stocktons, from over San Vicente way. Subsequently merely a short occupancy this frame edifice of the 1880s burned; the Stokes family then provided an acre of land for a larger construction in the valley near their new home. It was known as the Santa Maria District until 1921, when it was taken into the Ramona Union School District. At that fourth dimension the schoolhouse-house was "transplanted" to the Ramona schoolhouse grounds on D Street and served there for a dozen years. In the early 1930s it was again uprooted, and now is an attractive dwelling house on Eleventh Street, Ramona.

Back in the horse-and-buggy — or saddle — days, a community having seven or more children of five years and older, could constitute a school district, provide schooling facilities for eight grades, and employ certified teachers under a County Rural School system.

According to available data, the adjacent school-business firm in this neighborhood was in the Bound Hill district – a trivial adobe, home-congenital affair on the Rotanzi Rancho, simply northerly of the fine Rotanzi vinyard. A flattened, weather condition-beaten mound of adobes still marks the location. About 1897 it was replaced by a frame construction on the Sutherland Route, a few yards below. Mrs. Alvin Rotanzi and Mrs. Harriet Brownish were teachers in this school, which continued in operation until 1943. Similar the Santa Maria school, it at present is a private residence.

During the 1890s and after the plough of the century, many settlers with children were arriving in the valley, and the demand for schools continued to grow. With aught but horses — or walking — available for transportation, a "one teacher" school was located about every three or four miles; a check of records shows no less than x such piddling "grammar" or elementary schools in the district now included in Ramona Spousal relationship, which now covers some 150 square miles and includes the Union High Schoolhouse Commune.

In addition to the iii pioneer districts mentioned — Santa Maria, 1881; Spring Loma, late 1880s; and Ramona, 1888-89 — in that location was the Earl school of 1889, its original edifice being near the Dennison turkey ranch on San Diego highway; a new edifice was provided for it in 1896-97, on the old San Diego highway. One of the first teachers in the old Earle building was Mrs. Clara Keys Graham in 1890, and in the new 1 was Olive Elder Peirce, 1896-97. The customary bacon for teachers in these "i teacher" schools was $65 and $75 a month for a nine-month term; board, with equus caballus transportation, was $2.50 a week, in some nearby dwelling house.

Also operating at this time was the Montecito School three miles from Earl, and one-half a mile s of Montecito Rancho. It was closed in 1910 and its 5 or half dozen pupils were captivated by Ramona. The building slowly vanished, piece by piece, and today only a lonely eucalyptus tree marks its site.

About three miles northeasterly was the Viego School, of 1886, attended by the children of the John, Pope, Clevenger and Howe families. It was on the northward rim oi the valley, shut to the Pamo road, and in 1895 its few remaining pupils went to the Santa Maria (Goose Valley) school. Post-obit the Pamo route down into that pretty petty valley, one came to the Almond schoolhouse, which served the Moore and Ross families. Similar Montecito, it "faded away" — carried off piecemeal by "Pack rats."

The Julian mining boom of the 1880s attracted not only prospectors but land-seekers — and squatters — and many took upward government land in this new section of San Diego County. Some settled around Ballena, and this chosen for another "Niggling Ruby-red Schoolhouse-House" — which was built on the Warnock Rancho and served until the center 1940s.

In the late 1880s new settlers located about three miles to the southeasterly, in the vicinity of the Charles Littlepage place, and as there were seven or more children the Rosebury school was established. It lasted for just a few years, and was taken over by the Ballena Commune.

Like the old red brick school-business firm of 1888-89 at Eighth and D, these schools were the centers of customs social and literary activity in pioneer days. In 1899, increased omnipresence demanded a new building, which was erected at Ninth and D — a ii and one-half room structure for the upper four elementary grades, besides equally the small commencement class, which held forth in the "half room" at the rear of the building. The primary, or instructor in charge, taught the seventh and eighth grades.

At this time also, the high schoolhouse moved from the "attic" of the Boondocks Hall to the one-time 1888 edifice, remaining there until 1912, when the kickoff High School building was congenital. On its completion, the iii or four lower uncomplicated grades moved dorsum into "Sometime 1888."

In 1921, when the Unified District was organized, the Goose Valley building was moved over the hill to a location a few yards west of the quondam brick structure to accommodate most twenty-five pupils taken into the new Matrimony; it housed three or four of the elementary grades, with one instructor. When information technology was moved off to be remodelled every bit a residence, in the 1930s, the state was used for a structure of four class-rooms, an associates-room and an auditorium. Information technology lasted for well-nigh ten years; and so, one winter dark, a faulty oil heating organisation started a fire which destroyed it.

So there were, in all, 15 buildings associated with the "Little Cherry Schoolhouse-Business firm" era in Ramona — two each at Santa Maria, Earl and Spring Loma, iv at Ramona, and one each at Montecito, Almond-Pamo, Viego-Clevenger's, Ballena-Warnock's, and Rosebury-Fiddling pages.

The history of the Ramona Union High School — which I attended in 1894-95, in the onetime Barnett Town Hall — is a story in itself, and ane which someone should compile. I am indebted for fabric in this brief newspaper to the staff of the Ramona Union High School annual, El Año, for 1947, who did a creditable piece of historical research in this field.

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