{"nrhp_refnum":"79001787","name":"Great Western Schoolhouse","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"W of St. Clairsville on U.S. 40","address_restricted":false,"city":"St. Clairsville","county":"Belmont County","state":"OH","lat":40.07289429700006,"lon":-80.98105464099996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-05-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-story, one-room brick schoolhouse built in 1870 on the Old National Road (U.S. 40) west of St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio, now on the grounds of the Ohio University Belmont County Branch Campus.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it an architecturally unique and well-designed one-room schoolhouse for Ohio and representative of the county's 19th-century public education system. It is the only survivor of 16 brick schools built in Richland Township in the 1870s and remains almost completely intact.","narrative":"Beside the Old National Road west of St. Clairsville, this one-room brick schoolhouse was built in 1870 on land donated by Simon Lentz, a German stonemason who ran a nearby hotel. It sits on a rough sandstone foundation with a chiselled stone belt course, a slate gable roof, and a small belfry. Round-arched windows with nine-over-nine sashes and a central doorway set in round blind arches give the front a distinctive look. Inside are tongue-in-groove floors, wainscoting, and an elaborate tin ceiling. The school replaced a log school of 1835 across the road and served a planned village called Great Western that never developed. Richland Township had 18 substantial brick schools by 1880, 16 of them built in the 1870s, and this is the only one left. It taught pupils until 1952, later stood abandoned, and was restored as a museum by a local club.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899 (specific date 1870)","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Used as a classroom until 1952, then by a coon hunters club, later abandoned, then restored and reopened as a museum. Condition listed as good, unaltered, original site.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:53:12.14513-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/79001787.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79001787/891ecd960d-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79001787/891ecd960d-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"Bwsmith84 (talk)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_GWS_St_C_Ohio.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Bwsmith84 (talk)</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_GWS_St_C_Ohio.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71986809","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Schoolhouse","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5600217"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/ohio/belmont-county/great-western-schoolhouse-79001787/"}