Freeman School: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Homestead National Historical Park

Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

The Freeman Schoolhouse is a non-contiguous section of Homestead National Monument of America. It is not inventoried as a component landscape of the Homestead National Monument cultural landscape because it is considered to be individually significant. The one-acre site is situated on Nebraska State Highway 4, roughly 3.5 miles west-northwest of Beatrice in southeastern Nebraska. The landscape, which contains the school and several outbuildings, is surrounded by agricultural land. The Freeman School property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing feature of the Homestead National Monument on October 20, 1976. It is nationally significant during the period 1871 to 1967, representing its construction, period of operation, and permanent closure of the building. It is important for its associations to the Homestead movement and related patterns in human migration, agriculture, federal land policy, native cultures, and the Western landscape. The schoolhouse landscape represents the area to which pioneers traveled in order to claim property under the 1863 Homestead Act. The Act influenced the spread of people, agriculture, and technology, and towns and services soon developed to support the newly established settlers. The one-room, brick Freeman School was constructed in 1871, representing a common instructional style where students of all ages were taught in a single room. The school house also functioned as a community meeting place for political, agricultural, social, and religious gatherings. The construction of the school itself is also significant, serving as an example of the type of school building common in nineteenth-century rural areas. In 1978, the National Park Service (NPS) took steps to restore the building to its 1890s appearance. The Freeman Schoolhouse takes its name from Thomas Freeman, a local farmer and brickmaker who contributed brick for the school. He is of no relation to Daniel Freeman, the first homesteader to utilize the government land program. The small cluster of buildings located on the property includes the schoolhouse, a storage shed, and two privies. There is an 18’ metal pole located near the boys’ privy, generally assumed to have been a piece of playground equipment. On the west side of the schoolhouse is a cast iron hand pump on a concrete well cap. Although it marks the historic location of the well and the make and model of the pump is historically appropriate, it was added to the landscape by the NPS in the 1970s. The rural agricultural setting of the Freeman Schoolhouse retains a great deal of historic integrity. However, the site has been impacted by the loss of all shade trees that contributed to the landscape’s historical character. Also, despite the fact that the grounds were mowed throughout much of the history of the school, the park now maintains most of the open grassy area as a prairie. The tallgrass prairie is a modern development that detracts from the cultural landscape. An improvement by the park includes a reconstruction of the gravel entrance drive that historically accessed the front of the school. The entrance of the drive is gated to prevent visitor vehicular traffic. The Freeman School is used by the NPS as an interpretation exhibit of the type of one-room school house common to rural areas as settlement pushed westwards. The schoolhouse was one of the oldest one-room schoolhouses in Nebraska, and the oldest continuously operating school in the state. The landscape is in good condition overall, but some of the buildings require more attention in order to preserve its integrity as a school complex that remains essentially unaltered since the period of significance.

Freeman School: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Homestead National Historical Park

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