Chana School

Ogle County, Illinois was divided into twenty townships in 1850. Changes in name, boundaries, and number of townships occurred between 1850 and 1880. These townships varied in size with some being larger than thirty-six sections and some smaller. Correspondingly, the number of schools in each township also varied, as did the enrollment in the schools. There is some controversy as to the first school in Ogle County. The school taught by Simon Fellows in the house of O. W. Kellogg in Buffalo Grove during the winter of 1834-1835 is claimed to be the first school in an 1859 booklet written by Henry Boss. It was a subscription school with parents of students paying tuition for their children’s education and other subscription schools were established throughout the area.  

By 1842, there were sixteen schools in the county. These log buildings were the standard educational structure until the early 1870s when wooden frame, stone, or brick construction replaced sawn logs. One-room schools were used for classrooms in Ogle County from 1836 until 1964. Seven rural school districts were created in Pine Rock Township. They were Eureka (White Oak), Husking Peg, Chana, Cyclone (Canfield), Stone Hill, Paynes Point, and Limerick, one school building per district.  

This organizational system seemed typical of the Midwest. By creating many school districts in a township, farmers brought schools to their children. When enough settlers moved into an area, a new school district was created by reorganizing the township’s school districts, bringing the new school closer to the children. These districts which were formed by the local farmers’ decisions, varied in size and shape. Most townships followed a general pattern that could be seen from the location of the schoolhouses. It was the custom to divide the township into districts that were two miles square and build a schoolhouse near the center of each. 

When the Village of Chana was founded in 1871, White Oak School, built in 1869, stood about half a mile southeast of the town, and was the school which the children of Chana attended. The White Oak School was abandoned in 1883 when Chana School was opened. It was used for hay storage until it was struck by lightning and burned down in 1886. Although the idea of a high school in Chana was brought for a vote in Pine Rock Township in 1888, it failed, and students from Chana continued to go to schools in Oregon, Illinois for education beyond eighth grade. The first teacher, in 1883, was D. C. Sears of the nearby town of Oregon. Minnie Burright, John Cross, I. J. Huntley, Miss Heller, Adah Jenne, Mr. Sullivan, Silas Eakle, Emily Rutledge, Mr. Reynolds, and Julia Driscoll were among the teachers at the school during its early years in the late nineteenth century.  

Of the fifty schools that were located near Pine Rock Township in adjacent townships, there is only one standing (as of 1990) that has not been incorporated into a residence. One school in LaFayette Township was moved to a historical village outside of Frankling Grove, Illinois, where it is currently used as part of a collection of structures representing a prairie village at the turn of the twentieth century. The Chana School is the last wooden two-room schoolhouse left standing in Ogle County, Illinois. It is not known exactly how many Illinois rural schoolhouses are still extant, but the numbers today are considerably less than the ten-thousand-plus that once dotted the landscape.  

Rural schools educated most of the children in Illinois until the 1920s when most of the population began moving to urban areas. New legislation, improved transportation, and new centralized facilities with better equipment, more teachers, and numerous subjects led to the end of rural schools. There is no doubt that they are considered a disappearing resource. Classes were held in the school until 1953. By this time, the state was encouraging a policy of consolidating and centralizing institutions, so that grade, junior high, and high schools could be created. The school was used as a supplemental classroom in 1960 and closed for good in 1964.  

Chana School, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed January 11th 2021. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893795.

Chana School Museum, City of Oregon. Accessed January 11th 2021. https://cityoforegon.org/chana-school-museum/.

Chana School, Wikipedia. Accessed January 11th 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chana_School.