STORIES & TRAILS
Hardy County Historic Schoolhouse Trail
Step back in time and visit the locations of Hardy County’s remaining historic one- and two-room schoolhouses.
At one time, Hardy County had more than 120 schools. To date, 23 schools have been identified, researched and mapped and former pupils who are now community elders have been interviewed.
This trail lets you view the structures that still stand (and some marked only by their foundations) while imagining a time when paved roads, motorized transportation, and bridging over streams did not exist. Many were in the woods and some schools were as much as a two-mile walk from home!
The Hardy County Historic Schoolhouse Trail was not intended to be developed or managed by Visit Hardy. Instead, we worked with Visit Hardy’s AmeriCorps Member who fully organized and implemented the project. A local resident, she had previously engaged with community elders, researched their school and wished to expand upon that work. Moorefield Examiner articles were written about the various schools as the project evoloved resulting in former students and teachers reaching out to offer more information and to identify additional schoolhouses.
Some research assistance for the project was provided by students from the Public History Program at WVU as part of the WVU Fulcrum Project grant. Upon completing this phase of the Trail, a non-profit organization, Mountain Heritage Trails, Inc. (dba Mountain Heritage Folk School), was created to manage and possibly expand the schoolhouse trail as well as continue development of other heritage projects.
The trail is ever growing and available for you to enjoy. To learn more about the 23 schoolhouses and to experience the realities of rural schoolhouses, drive the trail or view it online. The Hardy County Historic Schoolhouse Trail has been posted on The Clio, a free, open source history app created at Marshall University.
