A group will be touring a few of Washington County’s one room school houses today. The individuals that makeup the group are in Kalona for the 15th Annual Iowa Country School House Conference being hosted at the Historical Village.

According to local historian Michael Zahs, at one point there was a one room school every two miles. Here in Washington County there were over 130 school houses.

Organizer of the conference Bill Sherman says there are 3,000 country schools that remain standing in Iowa. More than 1,000 of those have been converted into private homes or outbuildings, like the one Zahs owns, which happens to be the school he graduated from. T

wo-hundred have been preserved as museums. Sherman adds there’s at least one school house turned museum in each of Iowa’s 99 counties.