By the early 1860's it was decided to put up a frame school building. In December of 1865 a piece of land was leased from John Spoon , The parcel was eight rods wide and ten rods long. The lease was for 99 years.
In the spring of 1866 the present building was erected. It is the last building still standing on its original foundation left in the Spoonville area.
The average attendance in the 1880's and nineties was around thirty students. But after the turn of century and the end of the logging era the attendance slowly fell so that by 1925 there were only eight to ten children left in attendance. The School board of that time consisting of Claus [Charlie] Erhorn, Martin L. Fritz and Samual Easterly decided that it would be cheaper and the students would receive a better education if the district would bus them to Nunica and pay tuition to that district. Earnest Plant was hired to bus them. An old Nash car was remodeled with a cello tex coop erected on the back. Board benches were along the sides for the children to sit on. This was the first known school bus in the state of Michigan.
Forrest Easterly took over as driver the next year and continued for many years even continuing after the district consolidated to the Nunica and later to Spring Lake School systems.
It is now over a hundred years since the district took out the 99 year lease so the land has returned to the present property owner. He has left the old building standing and made such improvements necessary to keep it from deteriorating. There are not to many people left who can say that they learned their A.B.C.'s within those walls. I'm proud to say that I am one of them.
One other note , Claus Erhorn attended the school in the Early 1860's and at the age of twenty one became a director of the district a job he held for the next sixty years until the district started busing students to Nunica. My grand father Swan was on the board at one time. He brought home some of the school attendance records were it shows that my Uncles were students. I came into possession of them and I prize them highly.