The Oldest Wooden School House is a wooden structure located at 14 St. George Street in St. Augustine, Florida near the city gate. It is touted as being the oldest wooden school building in the United States. The exact date of construction is unknown, but it first appears on tax records in 1716. There are no extant wooden buildings in St. Augustine built prior to 1702 when the British burned the city. The oldest schoolhouse still standing in the United States is the

Voorlezer's House The Voorlezer's House is a historic Clapboard (architecture), clapboard frame house in Historic Richmond Town in Staten Island, New York. It is widely believed to be the oldest known schoolhouse in what is now the United States, although the sol ...

built prior to 1696 and located in

Historic Richmondtown Historic Richmond Town is an authentic town and farm museum complex in the neighborhood of Richmondtown, Staten Island, in New York City. It is located near the geographical center of the island, at the junction of Richmond Road and Arthur Kill ...

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, New York. The building is encircled by a large chain, placed there in 1937, to help anchor it to the ground in case of a hurricane. The walls are made of

bald cypress ''Taxodium distichum'' (bald cypress, swamp cypress; french: cyprès chauve; ''cipre'' in Louisiana) is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a wide r ...

and red cedar which are held together by wooden pins and iron spikes, however, recent maintenance has replaced the roofing, among other fixes. The schoolmaster and family lived on the second floor above the classroom and the kitchen was located in a separate building to reduce heat and threat of fire.The Oldest Wooden School House. "The Oldest Wooden School House" brochure, circa 2007. The building originally belonged to Juan Genoply. The classroom was one of the first in the US to be

co-ed Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

, educating both boys and girls since 1788. "Dungeon Under the Stairs at the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse" 2017-07-16
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Tours

The school is open to tourists every day except Christmas, with extended summer hours. The facility features a self-guided tour with an animatronic teacher and student (made by Sally Corp.) giving a brief history of the house. There are also numerous items and informational signs posted around the building. Gardens located behind the house feature exhibits on the kitchen, a rebuilt outhouse, an old well, and a sculpture garden displaying busts of famous educators. The statuary was part of a project known as ''The Grove of Educators'' which sought to gather statues of educators from every country in the Americas, though only a few countries participated.

References and footnotes

References

*''Florida'', DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, 2004, pg. 198

Footnotes

External links

Oldest Wooden School House Website

Educational institutions established in the 1700s Defunct schools in Florida Buildings and structures in St. Augustine, Florida Schoolhouses in the United States Museums in St. Augustine, Florida History museums in Florida Education museums in the United States Oldest things Wooden buildings and structures in the United States