The Lower Spring Creek School house was established to provide education to rural children from surrounding farms and ranches. The date of construction is believed to be 1908 to 1915. The surrounding lands were first opened up for homesteading in 1899. The school operated until 1948 when the Ignacio Consolidated School District #11 was formed.
The consolidated school districts spelled the end of most one room country school houses. In 2009 Richard Parry, current owner of Fox Fire Farms, had the school house restored to its original condition.
The school operated as a typical one room county school house with grades 1 to 8 all being taught by a single school teacher. Typically, there were from 15 to 30 students attending the school.
The school teacher, usually a single female, was boarded during the school year by one of the surrounding farm families. In the early years, families took turns boarding the school teacher during the school year. In later years, many of the teachers were local residents.
Fox Fire Farms has a special connection to the Lower Spring Creek School because the current owner’s mother, Alberta Jones Parry and aunt, Evelyn Jones Payne both attended the school from 1916 to 1924. In the 1930’s Evelyn Jones came back to the school as a teacher. Evelyn was fond of telling stories of her time spent teaching at the Lower Spring Creek School and how she concealed her recent marriage because the teacher was required to be single.
