Schoolhouse Enters Portfolio of Historic Structures
The Yost School — formerly the North Star School, District 81 — was recently added to the Cather Center’s portfolio of historic structures. This extraordinary gift, made by the six children of the late Ardis Grace Mullen Yost and John Hobart Yost includes the restored one-room schoolhouse along with an extensive collection of original furnishings, books, and educational artifacts. The Schoolhouse has been carefully relocated on the grounds near the Center’s Burlington Depot, where it will expand opportunities for place-based education.
Critical to this effort is the generous support of Suzi and Robert Schulz, Jay Yost and Wade Leak, Jeff Yost and Cindy Ryman Yost, and Matthew and Sarah Baker Hansen—whose contributions have supported the relocation of the structure and established the Yost School Endowment Fund. This fund will provide for the long-term maintenance and preservation of the Schoolhouse and will support future programming centered on one-room schoolhouse education.
Originally located four miles north of Cowles, Nebraska, the North Star School, District 81, served generations of rural students from 1887 until its closure in 1959. Afterward, it was repurposed into a granary before John Yost gifted it in 1989 to his wife Ardis, a former one-room schoolteacher and the last to teach in such a setting in Webster County. The Schoolhouse was then painstakingly restored thanks to the efforts of Bob Schulz, who worked tirelessly to preserve its historical character.
For the Yost Family, the gift represented an opportunity to honor their late mother and her career as an educator. Daughter Suzi Yost Schulz believes their parents would be thrilled at the commitment of resources to ensure a cause that meant so much to them. She recalled that John and Ardis found joy in others experiencing the many facets of rural school life. “Now after their passings, we look forward to the delight our gift will bring to the residents of Red Cloud and thousands of visitors for years to come,” she shared.
While the structure does not have a direct connection to Cather’s life, the building is representative of her description of country schoolhouses. In an essay titled “The Education You Have to Fight For,” Cather remembered the structures as “lonely looking buildings, nearly always rectangular, three windows on each side, with a little entry-hall and a door at one end.” A young Cather attended The New Virginia School in rural Webster County in the 1883-1884 academic year. One-room schoolhouses would later become fixtures in her literature, including My Ántonia, One of Ours, and “The Best Years.”
When repair work is complete and a site plan for the grounds is fully realized, the Schoolhouse will offer visitors an authentic glimpse into rural education on the Great Plains. Its period objects—from student desks and blackboards to maps, lamps, and a school bell—will help bring history to life. We are grateful to the Yost Family for generously gifting this educational space and historical landmark and establishing a fund to support it in perpetuity.