Back to the Little Red Schoolhouse

Right after my post on Monday about the 1880 little red schoolhouse located on East River Road (that was repurposed in 1930 as a Girl Scout cottage), my faithful blog contributors sprang into action with helpful information.

Dennis Thompson came up with a 1924 post-Lorain Tornado aerial photo of the area that plainly shows the schoolhouse and its relation to the Burrell farm across E. River Road. You can see the schoolhouse at the top left of the photo; it’s the large, light-colored building. That’s East River Road running in front of it, and the Burrell farm across the road.

Then, Rick Kurish left his comment on the original blog post, answering my question about the possibility of any ruins of the schoolhouse that might be in the woods of James Day Park. "A bit of the foundation does indeed survive,” he noted. "A few courses of the stone foundation and some brick fragments can be found on a bluff overlooking Sugar Creek on the east side of the paved path leading from the James Day parking lot to the Burrell house. Although the site is only about 10 feet off the path it is virtually invisible, unless you are looking for it.”

How did Rick know it was there? As he explained in an email, "Probably 15 years ago after noting the school on an old map I decided that on my next trip to the park I would look for the site. It was surprisingly easy to find if you looked for it. There is quite a bit of the foundation still existing, at least there was the last time I visited the site about a year ago. In the fall just walk the path from the parking lot toward the Burrell house and after you climb the slight hill leave the trail and look on your left and you will find it."

Finally, completely by accident, I stumbled upon a back issue of Dr. Charles Herdendorf’s always excellent The Village Pioneer newsletter from March 2015. In an article about the early Sheffield pioneer families including the Burrells, Dr. Herdendorf mentions the 1880 schoolhouse – and even included a photo of the ruins.

The article also included a photo of a little model of the 1880 schoolhouse in its heyday.

Anyway, on the way home from work tonight I couldn’t resist stopping at James Day Park and hitting the trail to see the ruins of the schoolhouse. 

Like Rick Kurish observed, they were not visible from the paved trail paralleling East River Road. I walked from the James Day Park parking lot to a spot opposite the Burrell mansion with no luck.

So in full work clothes, I went into the woods (dodging the poison ivy) and walked along the bluff overlooking the creek as Rick advised. It didn’t take long to find what was left of the foundation. The main surviving wall is parallel to the paved sidewalk along East River Road.

If you would like to see the ruins for yourself, look for the tree that is very close to the paved walkway. The ruins are in the woods just to the east of it.