Bridenbaugh District No. 3 School / Bridenbaugh District No. 3 School

Bridenbaugh District No. 3 School. One-room schools were commonly named for people who furnished land for the building. Michael Bridenbaugh (1820-1895), who settled in Riley Township in 1835, and wife Jemima (1834-1903) sold a half-acre of land to the Riley Township school board in 1873. The first school on the site was a wooden structure, built in 1878. It was replaced by a brick building in 1889. The school operated until 1927, after which the district was consolidated. Students attended classes in nearby Pandora. (Continued on the other side)

[Side B]: (Continued from the other side) The Bridenbaugh family purchased the building and, like other former one-room schools, used it for storage. Unlike others, which eventually fell into disuse again and were razed, the Bridenbaughs restored their school, beginning in 1995. It reopened in August 1997 with a reunion of its last teacher Mildred George (1905-1997) and some of her former students. The restoration received an Award of Merit from Ohio’s State Historic Preservation Office in 2000. The school was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 as a well-preserved example of a typical one-room school of the rural Midwest.