Ashley Legg Manuscript: Rural Education in America: The 20th Century Shift Away from One-Room Schoolhouses to Modernized Public Education in Conifer, Colorado, 2015

From the introduction: From one-room schoolhouses to developed public schools, rural education in America has seen a dramatic shift over time. School consolidation played a large part in this shift on a national level and was one of the main reasons that America began transitioning away from one-room schoolhouses. This shift can particularly be studied in Conifer, Colorado. The first schools in Conifer appeared in the late 1800s as one-room schoolhouses and were maintained as the only schools in town until the 1950s, when larger schools were built. Ultimately, the Conifer School and Conifer High School played the largest, most significant roles in shaping the Conifer community and reinforcing its identity after residents voiced thier opposition to the national school consolidation pushes. These two schools are pivotal in examining the change in education over time in the town and the way in which Conifer reacted to district-level changes.