one room school houses?

[Bick]

I recently have been givin permission to hunt two places that once had schools on them (early 1900's) has anyone searched such sights and had any luck?

 

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[teverly]

You better believe it.....i have hunted old one room schools that are still standing and that are gone.
If youy know what direction the school sat,look at the site as if you were going to go into the building,then hunt the right hand side 1st.That seems to be where i have all my luck.
Search using some kind of pattern and as soon as you start finding stuff tighten the pattern up and work a 10 x 10 or 20 x20 yard square to start.if you run out of signals expand it a little bit.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I don't know about other parts of the USA, but where I'm at in CA, they have not been too productive. If they were truly just for the single purpose of 1-room school houses, and didn't serve other functions for adults, and if they were gone by the ..... say .... 30s, then they usually don't give up too many coins. BUT if they served other purposes as well as a school, then they may have better coin results. By other purposes, I mean things like the local grange hall, or church-use on Sundays, etc... Once you have adults mingling around it (especially commercial or recreational usage) the coin ratios go up. But if it was strictly kids in a country setting, prior to the 1940s, coin pickens will be slim.

I have hit many that we know for a fact are virgin sites, based on 1) the amount of original source research it took to locate them (not standing anymore, remote, etc...) and also based on 2) the types of other easy targets we found: buttons, buckles, slag, etc.. that would certainly have been cleaned out, if it had been hit before. Country 1-room school sites existed for as little as a few years (and were often just in someone's living room, rather than an actual free-standing "school"), or as long as 20 to 50 yrs. They had as little as 10 of 12 pupils at a time, maybe 25 tops. By the age of easier auto travel, bussing, etc... (1940s) they fell out of favor, as kids started "going to town" for school. Or in favor of bigger schools that drew from a larger area (as opposed to the 1800s/early 1900s, when there could've been a different school house every 10 miles or so along a road!).

I noticed a trend when we'd find and hit these virgin sites. Let's say the school was in operation from the late 1890s to the mid 1940s. We might find one or two coins there, but invariably, they'd usually be from the later end of the age spectrum. Like, we might find 2 or 3 wheats, but they'd both be from the 20s to 40s. Where was the earlier coins? We found nick-nacks from the earlier times, but usually no barbers, seateds, or whatever. It began to be clear that by the 1940s American properity had increased enough that even kids had a coin or two in their pocket. If you listen to very old people, who went to school in the '20s or 30s, they will usually tell you they didn't have money to carry or loose. (Why would you need money/coins anyhow out in the country where there was no place to spend it?) Contrast that to nowadays, when EVERYONE, even little kids, has coins in their pocket, even if you aren't going out for the purpose of spending right now

I still wouldn't pass up the chance to hunt 1-room school sites, but for higher ratio of coin losses, places where adults gathered and spent money, recreated, etc... will be your better coin hunting sites.

One last note on these coin demographics, as it pertains to schools and kids: We have some in-town larger schools, still in use, in my area that date back to the late teens/early 20s. Having worked them since the 1970s, I sort of "saw the evolution" of their "being worked out". In the old days, it wasn't uncommon to get lots of wheaties, mercs, etc... Even though the school would date to the teens/20s, we noticed that the vast majority of the old coins we'd find would be '40s/50s losses. So for example, if a merc were from the 20s, it would be worn more, evidencing that it was a '40s loss, etc.... At first, I wrote it off to depth issues, that we just weren't getting down to the older-loss stratas. But as technology got better, and depth was not an issue, we would occasionally find an earlier loss wheatie or silver (teens or 20s wheat that was very crisp). Based on the depth found at, I began to realize that depth wasn't the cause of us not getting a representative share of the earlier era coins. It was simply that coins flowed more freely in the economic properity of the post-WWII boom period. One schools entered into the school lunch program era (where everyone took their dime or nickel to school to buy milk, lunch, etc...) is when lots of coins. So I believe my theory of coin usage/circulation of kids in the late 1800s/early 1900s, verses 1940s/50s holds merit, especially for country schools, but even seen in inner-city school yard ratios.

 

[flyinguy]

good in n.y.! i have a 1830 map of my old township. it shows all ten district schools of the time. i've det. 9. the last is a hold out. nice stuff. coins. keys. toys. rev. war buttons and bullets. it was ground before it was a school. a couple i didn't get much but trash. must have been the "poor" district. good fun.