A One Room School
Spooner School was a one-room school built in 1894 and served students in the Town of Stettin in Marathon County. It was located near the intersection of county highways U and O. There were other schools in Stettin, named: Spring Valley, Rib View, Vilas, Mitchell, Woodland Dale, and Stettin Schools. Given their placement, students within the district would have no greater than approximately a two mile distance to or from their homes to the school building.
Spooner School Census Report, 1903-4
Multiple grades were instructed by one teacher at Spooner School, and students would attend school for either twenty weeks out of a year (if they lived outside of the district) or thirty-two weeks out of a year (if they lived within the district) out of the year. Reports such as this one kept track of the number of students in the district and were sent to the state superintendent each year. The report required that the number of children in the district between ages four and twenty and ages seven and fourteen be documented to track student education. A census was included in the annual report, allowing for the number of children residing in a district to be compared to the number of pupils attending schoolhouses, parochial, or private schools to be recorded. Children between seven and fourteen were required to be educated by a public, private, or parochial school for a minimum of thirty two weeks if they lived within city limits and a minimum of twenty weeks out of the year if they lived outside of city limits.
The School as a Museum and The Little Red Schoolhouse
Spooner School closed in 1962. In 1973, the building was purchased by a local branch of Altrusa International who had it transported to Marathon Park in Wausau to operate as a museum. This photograph depicts the school being carefully moved on a trailer. The white schoolhouse was subsequently painted red.
Later, in 1988, the Marathon County Historical Society worked in conjunction with Altrusa to establish The Little Red Schoolhouse program. This program, which continues to operate, was designed to offer elementary school students a field trip day at the former Spooner School fictionally set in 1904. The building was designated a local historic landmark by the Historic Preservation and Wausau Plan Commissions in 2025.