In 1913, Albert Ingalls and Charlie Weiss hauled a one-room schoolhouse atop two horse-drawn wagons 10 miles across the prairie to Mud Butte.
School at the three-year-old Royal Center schoolhouse started in December that year and it remained in operation for nearly 40 more years until 1951.
Fast-forward to 2024—a reunion of sorts—to celebrate the newly restored building, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in February of 2023.
Around 90 people gathered about 25 miles north of Union Center for the celebration. Among the attendees, six of the school’s former students and one former teacher.
Laila Ingalls Brownlee and her husband Phil made eight trips from Kansas to Mud Butte to spearhead the restoration together with her dad, Hugh Ingalls, who was one of the school’s former students.
"It starts with an appreciation for history and I also was looking for new ways to connect with my dad," said Brownlee. "I live more than 700 miles away and he loves local history, loves family history, and I saw him sitting at the dining room table at the ranch reading old township records from Royal Center Township meetings that he got his hands on and looking at the old homestead maps and I don’t know I just started out to be sitting down to spend time with him and just totally got into it.”
It took more than a thousand hours over the course of two-and-a-half years to restore the building with dozens of volunteers and help from a historic preservation consultant.
Buried among the decades of dust and rodent droppings, emerged historical treasures—a cursive alphabet banner, teacher record books dating back to 1931, and textbooks with the kids’ signatures on the inside covers. Along one wall, a chalkboard reflecting the names and dates of some of those same students who came back to visit the school since its closure.
Ann Ingalls Mahaffy attended the Royal Center school for seven years in the '40s until it closed in 1951. “I’m just surprised," said Mahaffy. The way it looks much nicer than when we went to school actually.”
That’s a sentiment shared by quite a few of the former students and teacher. But they also share other memories. One of them—getting to and from school. But forget walking uphill both ways in the snow.
Elaine Ingalls Rowett was a student from 1941-1947. “If the weather was winter and very cold, we came in the bobsled. They used it for feeding the cattle," said Rowett. "So, there was hay in the bottom of this big bobsled and we would lay down on that hay. And they would put the robe -- it was a cattle skin -- over us so we would be warm. We would stop down here at this place, which was another cousin. And they wouldn't open the robe. Her mother had her all wrapped up in scarves and she would kneel on her knees on the front of the sled and we'd cover the last half-mile.”
Mahaffey remembered the horse-drawn bobsled, but often had transportation of her own. “I had a little horse. He was not a nice horse. He didn’t have any shoulders to hold the saddle and the boys had big horses," said Mahaffey. "They’d get ahead of me and he go [sic] along and me and the saddle would go over his head. And he’d take off running and I’d catch up with him. Oh, I just hated that horse.”
Logistics was also an issue for the teachers sometimes. Gladys Packer Pullins taught at the school from 1947-1948. Back then, Pullins and her husband lived too far away to commute every day, so she’d often stay a week at a time.
But she didn’t want to stay alone, so a couple of the students would stay with her. “We had lights, just a lamp. No electricity, no running water or anything," said Pullins. "So, if you had to get up in the middle of the night, you had to go outside and I remember some mice. I’m scared to death of mice and I remember having mice in here. And my husband got some trapse
It might not sound like a great time, but Hope Symonds Septka, one of the students who stayed with her, said it was one of her favorite memories. “It wasn’t too much to do. I’m trying to think how we even got a bed in here," said Septka. "I don't know how we cooked out in that little entryway. We didn't work, but I can't remember if we played games—possibly. Yes, she was a good teacher."
Other students cited playing games like drop the handkerchief, duck-duck-goose, and ice skating as their favorite memories.
Brownlee is content to steep in the nostalgia of the restoration celebration, but she is looking ahead. “My parents are elderly so that’s getting you know. I don’t know what the future is going to look like and how different it will be for me to come up when they’re gone," said Brownlee. "But the land is really such a part of me and I have family here, too. But it’s going to be different and I’ll need something to do. So, I think I’ll always come up here with the caulk gun.”
Brownlee said long-term, they do have some work to do to keep the building preserved, especially on the windows. But first, she said she needs to thank her husband for picking up the slack while she was immersed in the project and she needs a little rest.