Independence School House continues to be a place of learning even after its heyday as a one-room school in the early 1900s. Now located on the Rend Lake College campus, the facility recently served as a stop on an educational tour for Benton Grade School students and parents.

Adrian Walker, fourth-grade teacher at Benton Grade School, said his class had stopped at several educational sites prior to visiting Independence School and they planned to end the day with a fishing trip to Lake Benton.

"Everything we do is an adventure," Walker said. "We just want to learn everything we can about the world around us."

During the stop, Dawn Gibson, Community Education Director at Rend Lake College, gave a presentation on what life was like in a one-room schoolhouse.

"The college is really fortunate to have this one-room schoolhouse. It’s a part of our history. It’s important. If the students don’t come to see it, they will never know about it," said Walker. "It is a way of keeping our culture."

Independence School, a one-room school house which cost $200 when it was built in 1917, is a part of the Rend Lake College Prairie Restoration Project. It was moved in December 1995 from its original site at the intersection of Thompsonville and Ewing roads after it was scheduled to be demolished in favor of a new fire station.

The school house includes the original black-slate chalkboard, a stove made by Benoist Brothers of Mt. Vernon, antique school desks and books, and an old piano.

After declining enrollments and consolidation caused the school to cease operations, the building served as a polling place and a meeting place for local 4-H Clubs and briefly housed the congregation of Liberty Baptist Church.

RLC now makes the school house available to the public for meetings of area schools and community groups.

According to research done on the school, classes usually were held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with children in all eight grades learning cooperatively in the classroom. Walking to school in the rain meant helping each other dry out around the coal stove prior to the start of classes. In the early 1900s, children rarely were let out of school for holidays; they were off on Thanksgiving Day and were allowed two days off for Christmas.

During the 1929-1930 school year, the teacher, Howard Richardson, was paid $100 per month. At the time, Richardson had two years of high school and 18 months of normal school.