{"nrhp_refnum":"08000406","name":"Rock Valley School","other_names":["Hancock School District No. 22"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"9598 Rock Valley Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Rock Valley","county":"Delaware County","state":"NY","lat":41.89236422600004,"lon":-75.08443647199994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2008-05-12","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-story, one-room wood-frame schoolhouse at 9598 Rock Valley Road in the hamlet of Rock Valley, town of Hancock, Delaware County, New York, built in 1885 by John E. Inman.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is an intact, representative example of a small vernacular nineteenth-century rural schoolhouse that follows the standard one-room school form. It is also tied to the growth of Hancock and the Upper Basket Creek area, where mills and wood chemical plants increased the population. It is one of only two surviving school-form buildings among twenty-nine cataloged in the town.","narrative":"Built in 1885 in the hamlet of Rock Valley, in the town of Hancock, this one-room schoolhouse was commissioned when the town expanded its school district to serve a growing population tied to sawmills and wood chemical plants. John E. Inman held the building contract, priced at $750. The clapboard-sided frame building sits on a cut stone foundation under a gable roof, with a vestibule used as a cloakroom and a single large classroom lit by tall side windows. Original pine floors, blackboard, iron coat hooks and a central cast-iron woodstove survive. It served as Hancock School District No. 22 until the early 1940s, when the town centralized its rural schools. Since the 1950s it has been a polling place and community meeting house. Of twenty-nine cataloged school buildings in the town, only this one and the Harvard school still keep their school form. It is listed for its education history and its intact vernacular design.","period_of_significance":"1885","architect_builder":"John E. Inman","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Used as a meeting hall for the Rock Valley Cemetery Association; also a polling place and community meeting house since the 1950s.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:53.342834-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/08000406.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08000406/64523f2be4-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08000406/64523f2be4-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"R Desy","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rock_Valley_Schoolhouse.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">R Desy</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rock_Valley_Schoolhouse.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75317257","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Valley_School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7354735"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/delaware-county/rock-valley-school-08000406/"}