1918 Alexander one-room schoolhouse returns for free Jasper tours

The 1918 Alexander One-Room Schoolhouse opened for free Saturday tours in downtown Jasper, giving Jasper Farmers Market visitors a close look at one of Dubois County’s oldest school stories. The schoolhouse is open from 9 a.m. to noon every Saturday through Oct. 3, and parking is available near the Jasper Public Library.

Inside, visitors step into a one-room classroom and see what daily life was like for students and teachers when rural schooling was smaller, simpler and far more intimate. Educators are on site to explain the building and its history, making the stop an easy add-on for families already downtown for the market, the Jasper Riverwalk or the Jasper City Mill.

The building’s backstory reaches to 1820, when the original Alexander School, then called the Shiloh School, was first built near the present Shiloh Church and became one of the first three schools in Dubois County. It was moved in 1859 to the Kellams family farm south of Ireland and renamed the Alexander School. After the earlier school burned in 1915, the current structure was built in 1918.

Historic Jasper says Dubois County once had 124 one-room schoolhouses, a reminder of how common this form of education once was across the county. The Alexander site now serves as a tangible link to that era, preserving a classroom model that shaped generations of students before consolidated schools took over.

The schoolhouse also highlights local historians who helped document the county’s past. Exhibits on George R. Wilson and Margaret Wilson are part of the experience. George R. Wilson was a teacher, surveyor and historian, and Jasper-Dubois County Public Library materials say George and Margaret Wilson wrote what it describes as the most complete county history on record.

The preservation effort has its own modern chapter. Planning to move the schoolhouse to the riverfront began in 2014, the Kellams family agreed to donate the building to ROJAC, and the schoolhouse was moved to its current location near the Schaeffer Barn in 2021. Within walking distance of the downtown riverfront and the city’s historic core, the site now adds a distinct historical stop to a Saturday in Jasper and keeps local history visible where people already gather.