Battlement Mesa School, Garfield County, Colorado 1897 Battlement Mesa Garfield Colorado USA Now on the National Register of Historic Places. The Battlement Mesa school was built in 1897 to serve the growing population of the area. Land for the school was donated by George Sipprelle of Battlement Mesa in 1895. According to an article written by Bea (Baley) Underwood and fellow oral history interviewee Ida (Underwood) Clark, the school may have been built by a German immigrant and stone mason named Werhonig. It was built as a one-room schoolhouse. Mary Shutt was the first teacher. She teacher taught 30 students from grades 1 to 8 in the school’s one room. Most students had an average walk to school of two to four miles. According to Bea Underwood, it came to serve 60 or 70 students in two rooms after an addition was built in 1907, with additional teachers also hired. By the time Underwood attended the school, from 1917 to 1921, fewer students attended. Later, only one room was utilized, with one person teaching grades 1 through 8. The school was heated by a large, round stove. Water was carried by buckets to the school from Curly’s Well, or from the ditch. Everyone drank out of the same dipper in the water bucket. Lelia Morrow was one of the teachers, along with Miss Sandusky and Miss Heatherly. Teachers boarded with local people on Battlement Mesa, including Mrs. Sipperille. Underwood recalls that Christmas pageants were held at the school. The school had a pond nearby, and children would skate there. In the school yard, they played games like baseball, Anty-Over, Fox and Geese, and Pump, Pump, Pull-away. The community utilized the building for all manner of events, even funerals and weddings. The school district became part of the Grand Valley district in 1947 and students attended Grand Valley schools. *"The Battlement Mesa Schoolhouse in 1981, prior to its restoration". Public domain photo from the Library of Congress collection, Historic American Buildings Survey, 1981. yes yes