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Early Schoolhouse Becomes Eagle Point Museum

Long Mountain School District 37 was one of the earliest in Southern Oregon, formed on Dec. 17, 1865, out of the western portion of Eagle Point.

The first known schoolhouse was located between Long Mountain and Englehardt’s Butte.  It later moved to a point on Little Butte Creek where Long Mountain Road angles east.  The school offered classes from 1925 to 1936, but when Long Mountain consolidated with District 9, the building was moved to Eagle Point, where it served as a classroom and later as an athletic dressing room and storehouse.

In 1976 the Bicentennial Committee decided it should be saved as a museum in Eagle Point, and turned it over to the Eagle Point Historical Society.  Members of the community and students donated time, materials and money to the renovation.  It opened in 1978 as the Eagle Point Museum.

Two 1,200-square-foot additions were added to the original one room schoolhouse in 1993 and 1998.

The city operates the museum, second in Jackson County only to the Southern Oregon Historical Society in the size of its collection of historical artifacts.

 

Sources: "Eagle Point Historical Museum-Eagle Point, OR." Waymarking.com.  15 July 2015. Web. 30 Dec. 2015. ;  "Museum." The City of Eagle Point Oregon. Web. 30 Dec. 2015. .

Luana (Loffer) Corbin graduated from Southern Oregon College, majoring in Elementary Education.  The summer after graduation she was hired to teach at Ruch Elementary, where she taught for 32 years. After retiring, Corbin worked for Lifetouch School Photography and then returned to Ruch as an aide helping with reading instruction and at the library.  More recently, she has volunteered at South Medford High.