After a year and a half of work, a publication listing all the historical churches and one-room schools is available to purchase.

The Muscatine County Historical Preservation Commission is behind publishing the book. Muscatine County Historical Society member Lynn Pruitt has the books. The cost is $25 per book.

“It’s a nice document to have,” said Historic Preservation Commission member Bill Koellner. “The whole book is on the county website and if you go out to a given location there’s a sign and a QR code that will take you right to it in the book,” said Muscatine County Historical member BIll Koellner.

There are 129 locations in the county that had one-room schools at one time, he said. Two well-known standing locations are the Belle Plaine School at Wildcat Den and the Swarm School at the train depot in West Liberty.

“There’s a number of them that are still standing,” Koellner added. “Some of them have been converted into housing.”

The locations are categorized into townships. Once the locations were identified, photographs were taken and the information was sent to a consultant to be put into a book format.

historic signs

The book is also available to view at all of the libraries in Muscatine County.

Now that the book is done, the Muscatine County Historic Preservation Commission is working on a new project. They are doing research on all of the transportation routes through the county including river transportation in the 1840s, stagecoach, railroads, dirt roads, gravel roads to eventually the highway routes.

“We’ll look at historic bridges, ferry crossings, about anything you can think of regarding transportation,” Koellner said. “Then support facilities like tourist camps. There’s an existing tourist camp on Highway 22 just north of Muscatine.”

If you have information about transportation routes through the county, Koellner asks you to contact the Muscatine County HIstoric Preservation Commission.

Once the transportation study is done, the information will be submitted to a consultant for publication. Koellner said he isn’t sure if it will be in a book format like the one for the one-room schools and historical churches. He said it could be put into a pamphlet format.

For more information about the Muscatine County Historic Preservation Commission, go to the Muscatine County website and search for Historic Preservation Commission.