Buckeye School

The Buckeye School, in Larimer County, Colorado near Wellington, Colorado, now known as the Buckeye Community Center, was a rural two-room schoolhouse built in 1925. It was used as a school until 1960. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

It was considered to be a large school, as it was 25x60 ft in plan with 10 ft high ceilings, a basement, and an attic. The main floor's open space could be used as a single classroom if a moveable, wooden, folding partition was opened. The partition, which has a door at each end, was used to separate older, upper grade students from younger, lower grade ones, when enrollment justified.

A basement level held a kitchen, two storage areas, and a teacher's living quarters. The storage areas, about 6x11 ft in dimension, were used to store wood and to store coal, for use in heating the building, and were loaded from pickup trucks by access chutes. Around 1944, when wood stoves had been replaced by butane stoves and when plumbing was installed, the storage areas were converted into girls' and boys' restrooms.

The school demonstrates features of post-1920s school design, including clustered windows on the south side of the building providing light coming in behind schoolchildren facing north.

It was named "Buckeye School" for the buckeye trees which grew in its area, although they are rare in Colorado.

A contributing site in the listing is a playground area holding surviving merry-go-round, swing set, teeter totter, slide and flagpole, on the south side of the building.

It was built by contract-winner O.A. Decker at final cost of $4,983.17. An original small stable and two original privvies are no longer present.

It is located off West County Road 80 about 15 mi northwest of Wellington, and about 12 mi from the Wyoming state border.