Rural Township, Jefferson County ? Half a century has passed since the three men reminiscing inside this one-room schoolhouse last stepped through its doors as students.

“That corn field used to be part of the school yard,” said Dallas Dolan, who started first grade at Buck Creek School in 1932.

Though Dolan and the other Buck Creek alumni remember bits and pieces of rowdy recesses, trips to the outhouse and teachers rapping students’ knuckles with rulers, their most vivid recollections aren’t of polishing their reading, writing and arithmetic.

What they most looked forward to were the community gatherings that drew the farming families of Jefferson County’s Rural Township to the stone school building.

Since consolidation closed the school’s doors in 1952, it has continued as a community meeting place. But the 124-year-old schoolhouse, now privately owned and leased rent-free to the township, is showing its age and needs some work before it can be used as the Rural Township Hall.

An auction set for Oct. 13 will raise money to help pay for the pricey interior work needed to bring the building up to snuff.

“We hope a lot of people come to the auction,” said lessor Marlene Williams, who lives next door to the schoolhouse.

An eye-catcher

The limestone country school  eight miles northwest of Lawrence just off U.S. Highway 24 in Jefferson County  is a real eye-catcher. Williams frequently sees people stopping to take photographs and sketch pictures. Two couples found the building charming enough to have their weddings in it.

“It’s quite an attraction,” Williams said.

Buck Creek is listed on both the state and national registers of historic places. A Kansas State Historical Society Heritage Trust Fund Grant and a private donation made possible recent exterior renovations.

Now, the costly chores of abating lead paint and removing asbestos must be done before the interior can be repaired, painted and refinished. Heating and cooling systems also will be installed, damaged tin ceiling tiles will be replaced, a bathroom will be added and the building will be made accessible to the handicapped.

“It’s just too nice an old building to see it fall apart,” said John Rodecap, Rural Township trustee.

Once the restoration is complete, Williams said she hoped to enlarge some old school photographs to hang on the walls and bring in a shelf stocked with some of the books Buck Creek students once used.

Bygone era

It will be just like old times for the dozen or so former students who still live in the area.

Dolan, Dick Gantz and Leo Mulvihill recently revisited their alma mater, sharing tales from their Buck Creek days.

“We spent a lot of time at the blackboards and a little bit of time in the corner,” Dolan said.

“There’s where Santa Claus came up,” Gantz said, pointing toward a corner door that leads to the school’s basement.

Gantz, who used to ride a pony to the country school, graduated eighth grade in 1949, Mulvihill in 1943. Mulvihill’s father was in the school’s first graduating class in 1895.

“You get a bunch of them together and you get a lot of tales,” said Williams, whose 63-year-old husband, Lewis Williams Jr., also attended Buck Creek.

It’s not just alumni who are interested in maintaining the school as a community center. Township residents five years ago approved a one-mill tax levy to pay for utilities, routine maintenance and other repairs. Some $35,000 has accumulated in the fund, township treasurer Stephanie Tozier said.

Lead abatement and asbestos removal will set the township back more than $40,000.

“We’re hoping this auction will put us over that edge and we can get this first phase done,” Tozier said.

 Staff writer Mindie Paget can be reached at 832-7187.