An old school house at Bellevue State Park is restored and will be used to inform visitors about the area.
The Mount Pleasant School House at Bellevue State Park was among the first public schools built under the Free School Act of 1829.
The one-room school was used from 1830 to 1864 with children of all ages from the local farming community learning reading, writing, arithmetic and grammar from one teacher.
Matt Ritter is the director for Delaware State Parks. He explains how the school will be used now.
"Even though it's the original look and feel, the school house will be our small-scale interpretive center for Bellevue State Park. It's going to be an opportunity,” said Ritter. “There's going to be panels inside. We'll have some volunteers and staff, and we'll have programs here and there. It's really an opportunity to learn about the park and what went into making this park. So it's going to tell the stories of the park itself."
Ritter notes it will also share the history of the entire area, and how it developed into what it is today.
He adds the building was once used as a house when it was the Estate of Bellevue prior to being a park, an addition was even built to the house.
Ritter says it has now been returned closer to its original state.
"This work has really occurred over the last couple of years. The demolition of the addition, and then more recently, over the last year or so, has been the hard work of really restoring the exterior, restoring the interior and developing the interpretive signs to tell all of our stories," said Ritter.
Ritter says the next step is to figure out how often it will be open, with the hope to make it as open and accessible as much as possible.
