History of Spring Lake School House*

Spring Lake Schoolhouse is a real one room country schoolhouse that was built in 1869, a mile east of the Yolo County Fairgrounds. The parents who farmed near Gibson Road and Country Road 101 wanted their children to learn to read and write, so they worked together to build this school themselves with donated lumber and materials. The Schoolhouse has been moved two times when it finally landed in 1889 at present day 1585 East Gibson Road, the location of Willow Spring School (abandoned now).

In 1950 the Yolo County Historical Society campaigned to raise $350 to buy the building and move it to the Yolo County Fairgrounds, where you see it today.

In the first seventeen years of the school history, there were fifteen different teachers, four of them men. The teacher often lived with a student’s family, sometimes moving from one family to another during the year.