The Little Red Schoolhouse at Stop 86

Little Red Schoolhouses used to dot the countryside in our area, beginning around the 1870s. You can see them all over the vintage maps for Black River and Sheffield Townships.

They were very important to the communities that they served. However, as modern schools were built, these red brick schoolhouses were often abandoned, demolished or used for something else by the 1920s and 30s.

While a few of these schoolhouses had high-profile new uses (such as the one at Meister and Leavitt Road being used by Port Mills Airport as an office), many of them are difficult to research.  

That’s why this article, from the June 30, 1938 Lorain Journal, is somewhat important. It’s a snapshot of what many of the remaining little red schoolhouses were being used for at that time, with the main focus on the one just east of Lake Breeze at Stop 86 in Sheffield Lake.

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Lake-rd Red School Starts New Chapter

Ex-Waldorf Tavern to Be Pottery Mart; Building Nears 60th Anniversary

By MRS. FRANK F. FIELD

SHEFFIELD LAKE – The “little red school” on the Lake-rd near Stop 86 has started a new chapter in its history. Until recently the Waldorf Tavern, it will become a china and pottery mart.

Many people in Lorain and Sheffield cherish memories of this particular little red school house where they received their early training in the “Three R’s.”

The building was erected in August of 1878 and will soon reach its 60th anniversary.

It formed one unit of the educational system of Sheffield-twp, comprising eight one-room schools.

When Brookside school was completed in 1923, these other buildings were closed and sold to the highest bidders.

Put to Many Uses

One stands on River-rd on property donated by the Burrell family and was recently used as day camp site for Lorain Girl Scouts and known as Trail’s End.

One is Sheffield village hall on Detroit-rd, one is the Sheffield Lake village hall on Lake-rd at Stop 74, and still another was purchased by St. Theresa’s parish to be used as a parochial school. The three other buildings have been razed.

In these eight one-room schools there were [illegible] pupils and the total payroll for the year in the entire system was the huge sum of $1,440.

Among the well-known people who received their early training at the Lake Breeze unit at Stop 86 was the late Leonard Moore, former mayor of Lorain; and members of the Maddock, Ge-Meiner [sic], and Gawn families of Lorain, Stiwald family of Amherst and Mrs. John Eiden of Sheffield.

Numbered on the teaching staff still residing in this county are Mrs. A. P. LaGron and Mrs. Minnie Hurst.

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You can see the little red schoolhouse at Stop 86 circled, top right, on this detail from the 1896 Sheffield Township map.

Interestingly, the land on which the school is located is labeled, “L. MOOR,” perhaps explaining why Lorain’s former mayor had a connection with the schoolhouse. (The 1874 map shows the name properly spelled as “L MOORE.”)

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I’ve done quite a few posts about little red schoolhouses, including the one on the Burrell farm (here and here), one in LaGrange, the one at Meister and Leavitt Roads, the one in Sheffield Lake that became City Hall for a while, the one on Kolbe Road whose bricks were used to build Joe Ule’s ’storybook house,' and the one in Brownhelm Township at the juncture of Morse and Banks Roads. I also posted an article about Journal reporter Lou Kepler’s Christmas memories of the old red brick schoolhouse she attended.