{"nrhp_refnum":"73001632","name":"Old Brown's Mill School","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Off U.S. 11, Antrim Township","address_restricted":false,"city":"Kauffman","county":"Franklin County","state":"PA","lat":39.83077970800008,"lon":-77.70192357499997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1973-03-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-room limestone schoolhouse at Kauffman in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, built in 1836 on land donated by Lazarus Brown. It is preserved as a historic site on the Pennsylvania Trail of History.","why_significant":"The school is significant as an early and well-preserved example of the mid-nineteenth century one-room schoolhouse and as a prototype for many later one-room schools built in Pennsylvania. It was built by local subscribers after the 1834 state free school act provided no funds for buildings, and it served its community for eighty-five years.","narrative":"A one-room schoolhouse built of limestone in 1836 at Brown's Mill, near Kauffman in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Local residents raised the money for it after a state free school act of 1834 provided no funds for school buildings, and fifty-one subscribers contributed. Lazarus Brown, grandson of the section's first permanent settler, donated the land. The one and one-half story building has a two-bay front, a center chimney and a shingled A-shaped roof, with a datestone above the entrance. It served the community for eighty-five years, offering regular classes as well as evening instruction in penmanship, singing and debate. It closed in 1921 when a consolidated school opened and stood vacant until local citizens formed a memorial association in 1934 to restore it. The building is important for its simplicity, its good state of preservation, and its role as a model for later one-room schoolhouses in the Commonwealth.","period_of_significance":"1836","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Vacant from 1921 until restoration; acquired in 1962 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and operated as a public memorial.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:30.533453-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/73001632.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/73001632/55fc4d2658-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/73001632/55fc4d2658-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"JERRYE &amp; ROY KLOTZ MD","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OLD_BROWN%27S_MILL_SCHOOL.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">JERRYE &amp;amp; ROY KLOTZ MD</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:OLD_BROWN%27S_MILL_SCHOOL.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71996008","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Brown%27s_Mill_School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7083552"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/franklin-county/old-browns-mill-school-73001632/"}