LA PLATA COUNTY SERIES

The Rockvale school was built sometime between 1900 and 1905 (former students and area history books don't pinpoint an exact date). The school was closed in 1948, when the population of western La Plata County an area known as the Dryside declined and Hay Gulch students began attending an elementary school at the old Fort Lewis College campus south of Hesperus.
Rockvale teachers arrived at the schoolhouse to fire up the coal heater and warm the schoolhouse before class started at 8 a.m.
The school day, which lasted until about 4 p.m., mainly consisted of the basic academics: reading, writing, math and social studies with short recesses in the morning and afternoon and an hour for lunch. Windows and kerosene lamps lit the school until electricity came to Hay Gulch in the 1940s.
When I (Luther Butler) went to Rockvale School in the first and second grade there was a bee hive in the north wall of the building.We children spent many an hour catching drones (they had no stinger) so we could attach them to pencils with sewing thread.I wasn't unusual to see a pencil fly through the air as the male bees pulled it around.Once in awhile a student and a bee would have a run in and stings around the eyes would cause the teacher to have a student lead the victim home.
During my first year Scarlet Fever broke out in November, and we didn't have school again until March. One of the eighth graders died of the illness.
Since we lived seven miles from school by the road, we would cut through the woods if the snow wasn't too deep. When it snowed sometimes drifts would get very deep. With the temperature below freezing, we had a good workout twice a day. In spite of the hardships the Rockvale School experience has always been my best school days.