About the Granny Richardson Schoolhouse

The Granny Richardson Springs one-room schoolhouse is 120 years old. It was named after Martha Elkin Richardson, a teacher that taught in Brushy Mountain, in Estill County; the school was named in her honor when it opened in 1900, six years before EKU State Normal School was established.

Oil was discovered on the school property in 1915 and when it dried up, acid treatment was used to try and float more oil, but it ended up contaminating the school spring. By 1950, there was only 13 students and by 1963, they had 6 students across eight grades and the school closed at the end of the 63-64 school year.

According to educational historian Ellis Hartford, who was the author of The Little White Schoolhouse, one-room schoolteachers “made” EKU. At its peak, there were nearly 8,500 one-room schoolhouses in Kentucky and each school was only as good as the teacher who taught there - and no more.

By 1970, the number of one-room schools in Kentucky had dwindled from thousands, down to where there were very few left. So, Hartford urged EKU President Robert Martin, who was formerly the Kentucky Superintendent of Public Instruction, to obtain a schoolhouse and have it moved to campus before it was too late. Five years later, Martin was offered the Granny Richardson Springs School and he arranged for it to be donated to EKU by the heirs of the late Eli Sparks. 

The original location of the school was sufficiently remote that they had to take down the schoolhouse to get it out. Access to the school was limited by a narrow road with a big cliff on one side, and they had to cut down some trees on both sides for the truck to get through. So, the school was dismantled, all of the bad timber was removed, and it was reassembled on the EKU campus. The furnishings came from Lee County except for the potbelly stove which was obtained from a school in Beattyville. 

In 2003, the College of Education launched an effort to raise funds to renovate the schoolhouse and in 2008 it was rededicated by EKU President Doug Whitlock. 

In more recent years, EKU has made repairs to the flooring and replaced the siding on the structure. The school has a fresh look and is periodically used by professors for the instruction of college students in educational foundations and Appalachian studies courses.

Now, Dr. Richard Day and Dr. Ricky Mullins are attempting to restore the schoolhouse to a type of self-guided museum, something we hope will stand the test of time and be a continuous reminder of how and why EKU was started here in the foothills of the Appalachians.