The Glendale School: Nevada's Oldest Schoolhouse, Moved Twice

There is a Nevada state historical marker standing beside a small wooden schoolhouse in Sparks. Its text explains that the building was moved to its current site in 1976.

The building has moved since. So has the marker. They travelled together, and the marker has been describing the wrong place for more than thirty years.

That is a small thing and I would not open with it if it were not so exactly the story of this building. The Glendale School is the oldest surviving schoolhouse in Nevada, or very likely is; it is the first school in the Truckee Meadows, which is certain; and it has been picked up and carried away twice by people trying to save it, until the one thing it no longer has is the ground it was built on.

1864

Glendale in 1864 was the main settlement in the Truckee Meadows. It sat at the river crossing where Stone and Gates had built the meadows' first permanent structure in 1857, on ground that had been a trading post since 1852. It had stores, a blacksmith, saloons, a small hotel, and now it wanted a school.

A man named E. C. Sessions began teaching the children in his own house while the building went up. The contractor was Archie Bryant, and the price was one thousand four hundred and forty-six dollars. It opened in April 1864.

The first board of trustees was three men: William Steele, N. C. Haslund, and John F. Stone.

That last name is the one worth stopping on. John F. Stone was the Stone of Stone and Gates — the man who in 1857 built the first permanent building in these meadows at the river crossing, on a site the county's own history says was formerly called Jamison's Station, and who in 1860 built what is believed to have been the first toll bridge over the Truckee. Seven years after putting up the valley's first building, he was sitting on the board that put up its first school.

That is a single human being connecting the emigrant trade of the 1850s to the public institutions of the 1860s, and it is the kind of continuity that gets lost when you tell these stories one place at a time.

Ninety-Four Years

The building was used as a school continuously until 1958.

Take a moment with that number. Ninety-four years. It opened while Nevada was still a territory — statehood was six months away — and it closed in the year of the Edsel. Children walked into that one room while Lincoln was alive and children walked into it while Sputnik was overhead. The county around it went from mule teams to the Reno airport without ever quite getting around to replacing the school at Glendale.

Its best-known pupil was Patrick A. McCarran, who went from that room to the United States Senate, where he became one of the most powerful and most argued-over men in Nevada's history. The boulevard his name is on crosses the river a few hundred yards from where he learned to read.

About That Superlative

The state marker calls it the Oldest Remaining School Building in Nevada. You will see that claim repeated everywhere, and I want to be straight with you about how firm it is, because the answer is interesting.

The marker gives no basis for it. No survey is cited, because as far as I can establish no survey was ever done.

And here is the part that ought to give a careful reader pause: the National Register nomination — the one document on this building that went through professional review — does not make that claim. It says something narrower and entirely defensible: that the Glendale School was the first educational institution in the Truckee Meadows.

Two different claims get blurred together constantly, so let me separate them:

Oldest surviving school building in Nevada. Plausible, carried by a state marker, with nothing published behind it. Nothing contradicts it either — I can find no older school building standing in Nevada, and the general lists of the state's oldest buildings do not include a school at all. The next-oldest candidate usually named, the Fourth Ward School at Virginia City, is 1876, twelve years younger, so it is not a competitor. The claim is probably true and has never been demonstrated.

Longest continuously used as a school. Ninety-four years, 1864 to 1958, is a remarkable run. But notice that every source that makes this claim hedges it — "said to be," "reportedly." I will not state it flatly either.

And there is an integrity point that nobody raises, which cuts against the building's own case: a building that has been moved twice has lost its historic setting completely. The Glendale School is in Sparks, in a park, next to a railroad museum, three miles from the river crossing it was built to serve. The fabric is original. The place is not.

1968: Five Groups Wanted It

Ten years after it closed, the school district had an empty 1864 building on its hands and had to decide what to do with it. In July of 1968 the district's man in charge of planning and maintenance reported to the school board that five groups had come forward wanting to keep the schoolhouse as a landmark.

Nobody has ever listed them. Here they are:

• Les Oppio of Sparks, who wanted to form an alumni association to take care of the site.
• The art department of the University of Nevada, which proposed using the building as a gallery for children's artwork.
• The Nevada Society of Professional Engineers.
• The Reno Women's Civic Club.
• The Sparks Sertoma Club.

The district's position was that the board wanted to deal with well-organised groups on a long-range basis.

Two things stand out. First, not one of the five is the organisation that actually ended up with it. The body that moved the building in 1976 is not on this list. Second, two of the five are Sparks interests — a Sparks alumni association and a Sparks service club — and the building is now in Sparks. Whether there is a thread from Les Oppio in 1968 to Victorian Square in 1993 I cannot say, but it is the right thread to pull.

1976: What It Was Actually Moved Into

In January 1976 the schoolhouse was lifted off its foundations at Glendale and hauled to the corner of South Virginia and Kietzke, onto land belonging to the Washoe County Convention Authority. The body behind the move was Washoe Landmarks Preservation Inc. This is usually told as a rescue, and that is where the telling stops.

Here is what the schoolhouse was parked next to.

On that same ground stood the Lake Mansion — the house of Myron Lake, the man whose crossing became Reno — which the same preservation organisation had moved there in 1971 under a lease from the convention authority. And in April 1976, three months after the schoolhouse arrived, a Reno Sunday paper ran an editorial on how that was going.

The mansion had been slated to open to the public in 1972. Then in 1973. Both dates were missed, and from the outside the paper judged it no closer to completion than it had been in 1971. A critic quoted in the piece said the building was deteriorating badly. At his urging the Washoe County Convention Authority Board had asked for an investigation into whether Washoe Landmarks Preservation Inc. had violated the terms of the 1971 lease — in which case the authority could take ownership of the mansion and do what it saw fit, including demolition.

So: in January 1976 the oldest schoolhouse in Nevada was moved onto leased ground beside a half-restored mansion, by an organisation that was, within weeks, under investigation by its own landlord for letting that mansion rot, with demolition on the table.

The school was not rescued to a safe home. It was parked on contested ground. That is why it moved again, and as far as I can tell this has never been written down.

1993: Sparks

Seventeen years later it was moved a second time, to Victorian Square in Sparks — 905 Victorian Avenue, in Lillard Park, at Victorian Avenue and Tenth Street, as part of the Sparks Heritage Museum complex. It is there now, and the museum will take you through it on a tour.

It is, on balance, a decent ending. The building is intact, it is maintained, it is interpreted, and it is next to a railroad museum in a town that likes its own history. But it is worth saying plainly what the sequence amounts to: a schoolhouse built at a river crossing in 1864 now stands in a city park in a different town, eighteen feet from a streetscape built in the 1990s to look like the 1890s.

Two Markers, Both Numbered 169

Nevada state marker 169 exists twice.

One stands at the original townsite at South Stanford Way and East Greg Street in Sparks, where Glendale was. The other stands at the building, in Lillard Park. Both were erected by the state's historic preservation people together with Boy Scout Troop 76.

And the one at the building is wrong, through no fault of anyone who wrote it. Its text says the schoolhouse "was moved to its current site in 1976" — which was true when it was cast, at South Virginia and Kietzke, and stopped being true in 1993. The marker was picked up and carried along with the building and is now standing in Sparks telling visitors about a site three miles away.

A state historical marker that has itself been moved twice, and whose text is now inaccurate because of the second move, is my favourite object in this entire story. It is a monument that has the same problem as the thing it commemorates.

Nobody Has Established Who Owns It

This one surprised me.

The 1977 National Register nomination records the owner as the Washoe County School District, leased to Washoe Landmarks Preservation Inc. That is the last documented statement of ownership I can find. There is no recorded transfer after it.

So the oldest schoolhouse in Nevada, a building on the National Register, has at least three plausible owners today — the school district, the City of Sparks, or the heritage foundation that interprets it — and I cannot tell you which. I am not going to guess, because guessing is how these things get written into the record. But it is a remarkable gap, and it is the kind of gap that matters the day a building needs a new roof and somebody has to sign for it.

At a Glance: The Glendale School

• What: the first school in the Truckee Meadows, and very probably the oldest surviving school building in Nevada.
• Built: 1864, opened April 1864, by contractor Archie Bryant, for $1,446. Nevada was still a territory.
• First teacher: E. C. Sessions, who taught in his own home until the building was finished.
• First board of trustees: John F. Stone, William Steele, N. C. Haslund. Stone was the Stone of Stone and Gates, who built the first permanent structure in the meadows at the river crossing in 1857.
• In use as a school: continuously until 1958 — ninety-four years.
• Best-known pupil: U.S. Senator Patrick A. McCarran.
• National Register: listed 30 January 1978, reference #78001729, nominated under Education. The nomination was prepared 19 May 1977.
• Careful with the superlative: state marker 169 calls it the "Oldest Remaining School Building in Nevada" and gives no basis. The National Register nomination makes no such claim — it says only "the first educational institution in the Truckee Meadows." The Fourth Ward School at Virginia City is 1876, so it is not a rival.
• 1968: five groups asked to preserve it — Les Oppio of Sparks (an alumni association), the University of Nevada art department (a children's art gallery), the Nevada Society of Professional Engineers, the Reno Women's Civic Club, and the Sparks Sertoma Club. None of them is the body that moved it.
• First move, January 1976: to South Virginia and Kietzke, onto Washoe County Convention Authority land, by Washoe Landmarks Preservation Inc. — beside the Lake Mansion, which the same body had moved there in 1971. By April 1976 the authority had requested an investigation into whether that lease had been violated, with demolition of the mansion among the possible outcomes.
• Second move, 1993: to Victorian Square, Sparks — 905 Victorian Avenue, Lillard Park, part of the Sparks Heritage Museum. Open by tour.
• Marker 169 exists twice: at the original townsite (S. Stanford Way & E. Greg Street) and at the building. Both erected with Boy Scout Troop 76. The one at the building still says it was moved to its current site in 1976 — it travelled with the schoolhouse in 1993 and is now inaccurate.
• Ownership: not established. The 1977 nomination says Washoe County School District, leased to Washoe Landmarks Preservation Inc. No documented transfer since.
• The townsite today: near McCarran Boulevard and South Stanford. An old barn, still in use, stands on the ground — it is private property, so look from the road.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it really the oldest school building in Nevada?

Probably, and nobody has ever proved it. A state marker says so without citing anything; the National Register nomination, which went through professional review, declines to say it and claims only that this was the first school in the Truckee Meadows. I can find nothing older standing, and the usual runner-up, the Fourth Ward School at Virginia City, is 1876. Treat it as very likely true and formally undemonstrated.

Can you go inside?

Yes, by tour through the Sparks Heritage Museum at Victorian Square. It is not a walk-in-any-time building, so call ahead. The museum complex and Lillard Park are worth the trip on their own.

How many times has it been moved?

Twice. From Glendale to South Virginia and Kietzke in January 1976, and from there to Victorian Square in Sparks in 1993. It is currently about three miles from where it was built.

Where was Glendale?

At the Truckee crossing near present-day McCarran Boulevard and South Stanford, on the south side of the river. It was the main settlement in the Truckee Meadows before Reno existed, grown up around a trading post of 1852 and the permanent building Stone and Gates put up in 1857. An old barn still stands on the townsite, on private land, and the state marker is at South Stanford Way and East Greg Street.

Why does the marker at the building have the wrong date?

Because it was written and cast while the schoolhouse was still at South Virginia and Kietzke, and when the building was moved to Sparks in 1993 the marker went with it. Its text about the 1976 move was accurate at the old site and is not at the new one.

Who owns it?

Unresolved on the documents available. The 1977 National Register form lists the Washoe County School District as owner with Washoe Landmarks Preservation Inc. as lessee, and no transfer is recorded after that. Anyone who tells you confidently that it belongs to the city, the district or the museum is going beyond the paperwork.

Conclusion

I have come to think this building is the most honest monument in Washoe County, and not for any reason its defenders would choose.

Everything we have been writing about in this valley is a story of things being moved. The county records were loaded onto wagons and hauled from Washoe City to Reno. The buildings of Crystal Peak were taken apart and carried down the river to Verdi. The Comstock's milling was moved off the Sierra side to the Carson River, and a whole valley's economy went with it. The county hospital was moved from Washoe City to a bad building in Reno and then to a good one a mile out of town. In northern Nevada, when the arithmetic changes, you do not rebuild. You pick the thing up and take it with you.

The Glendale School is what that instinct looks like when it is applied to something somebody loves. It was saved twice, by people acting in good faith, and the saving took it off its ground, out of its valley, out of its town, and set it down in a park beside a replica main street with a marker that describes somewhere else.

And it is still here. That is the thing. The courthouse at Washoe City is gone, the mills are stone outlines in the sage, Crystal Peak is a cemetery in another state, and the one-room school that John F. Stone helped build in 1864 is standing, dry, roofed, with its original fabric, and a guide will walk you through it. It outlasted all of them because it was portable and because it was loved, in that order.

Go and stand in it. Then drive to South Stanford Way and East Greg Street and look at the barn and the empty ground, and understand that this is where it was for a hundred and twelve years, and that a boy who learned his letters there went to the United States Senate.

We are always drawn to the places where Nevada's history is still out there to be touched. To bring a piece of that era home, explore our curated collection at The Eclection.

Resources & Further Reading

For deeper study, these are reliable, non-commercial starting points. The construction details, the first teacher and the first board of trustees come from the National Register nomination of 1977 and the state marker text. The five groups of 1968 are named in a Reno evening paper of 20 July 1968; the circumstances of the 1976 move and the investigation into the Lake Mansion lease come from a Reno Sunday paper editorial of 25 April 1976. One small caution for anyone working from the federal file: the nomination form gives the 1976 address as "Lietzke Lane," which is a misreading of Kietzke Lane. Note also that the coordinates in some online National Register tables do not match Lillard Park and appear to be stale.

• National Register nomination, Glendale School (#78001729) — the full federal file, public domain, with the 1977 description and photographs. The document of record.
• Marker 169 at the original townsite, Historical Marker Database — S. Stanford Way and E. Greg Street, with photographs of the Glendale ground as it is now.
• Marker 169 at the building, Historical Marker Database — the duplicate marker in Lillard Park, with the full text and the 1976 date that is no longer correct.
• Jamison's Station: The First Business in the Truckee Meadows — the 1852 trading post at the same river crossing, and how Stone and Gates came to build there in 1857.
• The Pillars on McCarran: Eight Lives of the Flick Ranch — what became of the Glendale ground afterwards, from the 1860s ranch to the pillars still standing today.