Founded in 1886 as a community project, the Little Red Schoolhouse was the first schoolhouse in southeast Florida. Its first seven scholars were taught by Miss Hattie Gale, the 16-year old daughter of the Reverend Elbridge Gale, former Professor of Horticulture at Kansas State Agriculture College who came to the Lake Worth area of Florida to be a minister and local botanist.
Today, the Little Red Schoolhouse is home to the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach’s “living history” program that takes children back in time for a mini-day in a one-room school of the 1890s. Education in America’s one-room schoolhouses stressed discipline, moral values and the three Rs: Reading, wRiting, and aRithemetic. Modern Little Red Schoolhouse scholars will relive the school day as it was at the turn-of-the-century: learning Spencerian script, practicing arithmetic, reciting stories from McGuffey’s Readers, participating in a spelling bee, and experiencing classic recess games. Furnished with period pioneer education artifacts, the Little Red Schoolhouse provides children with a true early American educational experience.
Location
2185 South Ocean Boulevard