Iowa Rural Schools Museum

We are a network of refurbished and renewed country school houses that once educated Iowa's new immigrants and their children as they came to settle and till the land. At one time, there were more than 12,000 country school districts in Iowa, each educating grades from kindergarten through eighth, often in one room, and with one teacher in charge. These became not only the central classroom for four sections of land but also the community centers, hosting extension meetings and social gatherings for the neighborhoods.

Our museums hold items and artifacts, furnishings, teaching tools, books, and more from the beginnings of these schools' lives through the 1950s when many of them closed.