DeBorgia Foundation yard sale to benefit schoolhouse
THE DeBORGIA Historical Schoolhouse was built in 1908 and survived the Great Fire of 1910. The Schoolhouse Foundation works to restore and maintain the building to keep it on the National Historic Registry. (Courtesy photo)
VOLUNTEERS MAINTAIN the library, which is on the schoolhouse property. It was built from the old DeBorgia Post Office. (Courtesy photo)
THE DeBORGIA Class of 1930 stands outside the schoolhouse when it was operational. (Courtesy photo)
The DeBorgia Historical Schoolhouse Foundation will host their annual yard sale on Friday and Saturday, June 14 and 15 from to benefit the schoolhouse maintenance.
Local residents have donated many new and gently used items, including hunting and fishing gear, tools, artwork, clothing, garden supplies, household goods and many vintage and antique items. A Cowboy Breakfast will be held on Saturday from 7 to 9 a.m., and a $2 hot dog lunch will be served in the afternoon.
The fundraiser will help the Schoolhouse Foundation maintain and improve the building and to meet the National Historic Registry standards. This year, the Foundation plans on restoring the attic back into an old school room. Schoolhouse Foundation Vice President Lynette Walters says it will have the original desks, refinished floors and new insulation. They also hope to start carriage house renovations and paint the school’s exterior.
“We’ll do as much as we can so we can turn it into what it looked like originally,” Walters said.
The schoolhouse is now used as a community center in DeBorgia and it hosts everything from wedding receptions to school board meetings. The Foundation also hosts additional fundraising events like dinners and pie baking in the fall. Next to the schoolhouse, they also maintain the community library which is open 24/7 year-round. The library was built from the old DeBorgia Post Office and is maintained by volunteers.
THE SCHOOL-HOUSE is the only remaining building following the Fire of 1910, which destroyed the rest of the town. It was the only surviving building on the West End, including DeBorgia, Haugan and Saltese. Built in 1908, it was the first two-story building on the west end of Mineral County, and it operated as a school until under enrollment forced its closure 1956.
In 1969, a group called the Happy Homemakers began working to maintain and preserve the building and it later became National Register of Historic Places. Now, the DeBorgia Historical Schoolhouse Foundation works to preserve the building. “This is a very worthy cause,” Walters says.
The yard sale will be Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information on upcoming events, email the foundation at dbschoolhouse@gmail.com.