September 27, 2015: This part of Bellevue Elementary has been a school for 157 years — 65% of the time since U.S. independence. Its construction in 1848 is closer to the late 17th Century than the present day.
A building that has served in some capacity as a school since the Civil War may only have a few years to go if a bond issue passes.
Bellevue Elementary in Jackson County was recognized as Iowa’s oldest active school building in a Des Moines Register article Aug. 31, 1997. (This fact happened to be handy because the story was overshadowed by the news of Princess Diana’s death, and preserved in the Register’s 1999 sesquicentennial book.) At that time, 71 buildings dated to before 1910.
The building was the second permanent structure to serve as the Jackson County Courthouse and, as such, was in the thick of the occasionally dramatic county-seat fights of the mid- to late 19th Century in Iowa. The Jackson County seat bounced from Andrew to Bellevue to Andrew again to Maquoketa, where it stayed after shenanigans that included county officials embezzling money back when that meant physically pilfering cash from the safe. The Bellevue building was the courthouse from 1848 to 1861, when it became a school. Its 107th year of service in education, passing Locust School in Winneshiek County, was 1968.
Last month, the Bellevue school board set a bond referendum to build a new facility adjacent to the existing Bellevue High School, according to Dubuque Telegraph-Herald articles excerpted via Google. The 1848 building would end its service as a school, but the district wants to help preserve it.
Now, how do I find the next oldest active school building…?