The Grass Valley School District held a commemorative event at the Kentucky Flat Community Center to honor the Kentucky Flat Schoolhouse, now a Nevada County Historical Landmark designated in 2020, and to celebrate its enduring role as a community asset. The schoolhouse’s history traces to 1850 mining camps, with the building moved to its current site in 1855, burned in 1895 and rebuilt, operated until 1963, and then leased to Grass Valley in 1964 for youth childcare; it later housed Head Start and a preschool, and today hosts community events maintained by volunteers and descendants. Speakers highlighted the district’s long association with the site, credited researchers and supporters (notably Jack Stillins and Tom Pettit), and underscored local history, early wagon routes, and the broader effort to preserve small K-8 schools. The gathering emphasized ongoing community involvement, reminiscences from former students, and the value of “learning by doing,” while reaffirming dedication to preserving historic sites and local education heritage.

Full Transcript of the Video:

Alright, well everyone, just wanted to take a moment to thank you for being here today.

I'm excited that it's not just two or three people, that there's a nice healthy crowd.

And really today, I think it's about a couple key things.

It's about the individuals here who either went to school here at Connections.

It's about this historic building.

And it's really about the Nevada County Historical Landmarks Commission that really brought all
of this extra energy and attention to life.

So I'm Andrew Withers.

I'm the superintendent here in the Grass Valley School District.

I've only been here for three years and I can tell you it's a wonderful place to be.

It's a wonderful place to serve.

And gosh, I hope I can be as old and sturdy as this building one day.

But with that, I kind of wanted to read to you a bit about our plaque so you know what's
going to be commemorated here.

There was a lot of consternation about where to place this, making sure it was the focal
point.

Was it on the building?
Was it on the boulder?
And we ended up with having it here so that folks as they're coming in and out of the
building could honor it for many, many, many years to come.

So I'll take a moment and I will tell you what's on the plaque.

Kentucky Flat Schoolhouse.

The Kentucky Flat Schoolhouse was originally located near the Kentucky Flat Mining Camp
below Kentucky Ridge Road along Old Road to Bridge, along the Old Road to Bridgeport,
which is today's Bitney Springs Road.

Within a few years, the mining camp's gold had been depleted and its residents have started
to move on.

In 1855, the Kentucky Flat School was moved to this location.

Two miles east of Kentucky Flat, the towns were two of the earliest established gold
mining camps in Nevada County and both were founded actually in 1850.

Mr. Hubertus Escardine, who emigrated from Germany named Newtown, is considered its founder.

He established a store.

He bought a market there way back in 1850 to supply all of the miners.

On August 21, 1877, he deeded the Kentucky Flat School District and property to this
location to the Grass Valley School District.

In 1895, the original Kentucky Flat School was destroyed by a fire, so this isn't that
building, but it was re-quickly built back that exact same year.

The school continued to operate for 108 years.

In 1963, it was eventually closed and then in 1964 was leased to the Grass Valley School
District.

The Grass Valley School District then leases it to allow youth child care services to operate.

It is a wonderful treasured piece of history.

The Landmark Commission registered this property on February 25, 2020, and we are hugely appreciative
of the Nevada County Historical Landmarks Commission for giving us the opportunity to
pay homage to the heritage here in this community.

Today you're going to hear from a few individuals near the end.

If you're a former student and you'd like to say a few words, we'll have time for that
as well.

Up next we have school board trustee, school board president, Tom Pettit.

Thank you Andy, it's amazing to see all these faces that I recognize here from past years.

I think that my tenure with the school board, as short as it has been when looking at the
history of this particular facility, is just amazing and to realize that the Grass Valley
School District only got this after more than a hundred years of operation is really fantastic.

I really appreciate all the turnout here, all especially the former students, and congratulations.

I'm glad we have this in our Grass Valley School District, but I'm hoping this will
stay forever.

Thank you.

Thank you Tom.

And if you wouldn't mind obliging me big round of applause for Tom.

He's been an amazing trustee for the Grass Valley School District.

We have a lineage of trustees who really stayed committed for a long time.

He's about to end his service with the Grass Valley School District after 23 years at our
meeting in June.

So again, one more round of applause for Tom Pettit.

We would not be here today if it wasn't for Jack Stillins really getting this project
underway.

So I'd love to have Jack come up and talk to us a little bit about this project and
the research and history that was done.

Jack Stillins.

First of all, I did go to school here in 49 and 50 and 51, but I've been involved with
the school for ever since and off and on.

Anyway, the school was also a community center.

We had both 4-H and Farm Bureau meeting here.

4-H still meets here, and it was used by other groups.

It was also an election precinct, which was so important because all the neighbors got
to come here and vote and then talk to their buddies they hadn't seen since the previous
year of the election.

So we had a lot of interesting times in the election.

I actually worked at the precinct for several years.

Then we also used the building for potlucks and dances.

The school was maintained by the community members, including the painting.

In the late 50s, early 60s, they added a kitchen and a bathroom.

We actually had outhouses in the back when we went to school here.

After the school was closed in 63, the community created a non-profit corporation with the
goal of continuing to maintain the building and property.

They were able to raise funds by having a booth on Treet Street for the Nevada County
Fair.

I think one year we had watermelon George, I think, out there, they had watermelon juice.

In 71, we were very lucky, Head Start came in, and Head Start was here until 2003, and
they helped us keep the building up and did a lot of maintenance and repairs and upgraded
it to meet code.

So it was very important.

After that, then we had Jen Norris came in, and she's got a preschool in here now.

In fact, I went in there a little bit ago, and most of the little ones know me, and they
say, Hi, Jack!
Hi, Jack!
Anyway, she's been here since then.

We still have events here, potlucks.

We have special events.

Last Sunday we had our annual rib potluck.

We still get together as a community.

I wanted to kind of enforce that, because I think that's how the school kept going,
was by the community members working with it and maintaining it.

In those days, the school district didn't have any employees, so it was the community
that kept it going.

That's the history I have.

I won't go into the other history, because Andrew did that, and it's been interesting.

The research on that was phenomenal.

Mike, over there, with the Historical Society, he found a map that showed where Kentucky
Flat was, and we did not know where Kentucky Flat was.

It was just down the road.

There's a Kentucky Mime, which the Historical Society just recently had a plaque on, and
then there's Kentucky Ridge, there's Kentucky Creek, and their whole soul, that's where
Kentucky Flat was.

When it was moved over here, they kept the name, but it was quite the town, the new
town here.

They had the hotel and bars, and it was quite the village, so thank you.

Thank you very much.

There's been a lot of communication to have this event on top of it all starting with
really jacketing us to this point.

A huge lift from my perspective was done by Chuck Samaica.

Not only is he here behind the microphones, making sure, here behind the cameras, making
sure the microphones are working today, but his attention to detail, his care and dedication
to make sure that an event, a plaque, a situation like this was done with the highest regard
for accuracy and integrity is really commendable, and so I'd like to have a chance for Chuck
to speak to you as well.

I'm a member of the Nevada County Historical Landmarks Commission.

It's been fun.

That's why I do it.

It's a lot of fun history, and it's been my hobby all my life.

But I do want to mention, it wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for our Board of Supervisors
reviewing our research, all of our research, and then finally approving this to be formalized
as a Nevada County Historical Landmark.

I want to thank Sue Hook in particular.

This is her district supervisor hook.

None of the supervisors are here today.

You might guess why they're in a board meeting during their job for us, and I really appreciate
that.

Also, I want to mention there is another superintendent here that we talked about Scott
Lay.

Scott Lay will be up next, sir.

He'll be up next.

Yeah.

I don't want you to get.

.

.

You can talk all about him, though.

He's a good swimmer.

That's all I know because he swam with me one time and peed the pants off.

Okay.

What I did want to mention is that we're a group of 10 commissioners appointed by the Board
of Supervisors, two from each supervisor or district.

I'm from District 4.

This is District 4.

The other commissioner that's not here today is Bruce, and he's on a way on some kind of
program that we're trying to dedicate a monument or a plaque to the Chinese community in Washington,
which is coming up, I think.

Saturday.

Saturday.

Right.

And so he could not be here today.

But there are some commissioners here today that I wanted to mention.

Mike Koch is standing back by my truck.

That's another retired schoolteacher, or I think he's still teaching, and I never remember
the number you're district, which is it, Mike?
Number two.

District two.

And Commissioner Jerry Martini is here today.

District three, right?
Yeah, I got that one right.

And are there any other commissioners that I didn't see?
Kathy.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Kathy.

Kathy is our newest commissioner from District Number One.

It took a long time to get an appointed person from District One, and she's been tremendous
in the short time she's been here.

Our media representative that gets these bulletins out, and she did a really nice job on this
one.

You might have thought it was in the Union newspaper.

Also, other people here that I'd like to mention that I know, I saw Linda Jack here,
and she's been a supporter of the Landmarks Commission for many years.

She's over there by my truck.

And she's working continually.

She helped me on research for the Kentucky Mine monument.

We call it originally, for 100 years, that was called the Kentucky Mine slave colony.

Today, we call these people enslaved people because that's more an appropriate term in
the first place.

That's just on the other side of the ridge.

Jack mentioned that just a short time ago.

That's on Craig Roshan's property.

But these communities were tied together.

In 1850, like was mentioned at earliest, pounds of any significance besides Nevada City,
Grass Valley came in a short time later, was Newtown and Kentucky Flat.

There was the Kentucky Flat Hotel or the Kentucky Flat House, two miles that way.

And there was the Kentucky Flat School.

That quickly did pan out.

The prospectors moved on, but did have historical significance in Kentucky Flat.

One of the things that I wanted to mention was that immigrants, the early miners, met at the Kentucky Flat Hotel or the Kentucky Flat House
and established the first mining laws for this community.

Formalized laws were not existence.

Miners set up their own rules of operation, how many feet a plane could be,
and how they were to be managed.

And that was done right there at the Kentucky Flat Hotel on the old road to Bridgeport.

The original name of Newtown was Sailors Flat.

We have the Kentucky Flat, Sailors Flat right here.

That didn't last long.

Later part of 1850, Hubert Sheridan, hard name for me to pronounce,
the German immigrant named it Newtown and we consider him the founder of Newtown.

It's interesting to note in the early days, talking 1849, 1850,
people traveled from the Sacramento area up the old roads,
no more than mule trails, very rough wagon roads.

The main way to gain access to this part of the world being Kentucky Flat, Newtown,
and the burgeoning town of Rough and Ready,
and the other town we call Nevada, Nevada City,
was that route that came up through Sacramento,
wandered through Penn Valley, came back the back way around Lake Wildwood,
up to Steep Ridge, past Kentucky Flat, through here to Rough and Ready,
and then on to either Grass Valley or Nevada City,
and then there was a spur road that went straight to,
excuse me, right to where we have the Steakhouse today.

The Willow, and then on to Nevada City.

And then the old roads that went to Downeyville left from here too.

This was a real place of a break off of the wagon roads.

The other one went right down Jones Bar Road,
crossed on a ferry that was down below at Jones Bar at the river of the South U-Buff,
and then later in the 1870s they built a bridge,
and then later in the 1920s they built another bridge,
and then later in 1994 they moved the whole operation to the new bridge
and traveled today on Highway 49.

With that I wanted to mention a couple things,
and I better look at my notes or I'm going to forget to mention them.

We do have a publication, I just want to put a little picture for it,
it's called Exploring Nevada County.

It's on sale on Amazon, it's also on Apple Books,
and it's $20 if you want to copy here today.

Now it's at SPD, it hadn't been there before though.

That's good.

And we also have an online version as well on the U-Bet Press.

The U-Bet Press has free publications,
one of which is the Ghost Counts of Nevada County,
very well written by our chairman Bernie Zimmerman,
and there's a second book that's about the early roads to the Comstock strike
and the early bridge builders and bridges and ferries called Over the Hennis Pass,
and I wrote that, so take a look at it, it's all free on the U-Bet Press.

One thing that I do want to mention, and it's been repeated,
that really this building has been here 168 years,
and it's still here thanks to the good care that's been given
by the present day descendants,
school children that used to be the little guys here,
now they're taking care of the building with Jack's Group
called I think the Kentucky Flat Community Center.

And I want to thank all the local people that did so much to make this possible.

Thank you.

The fact that Chuck could do most of that without looking at his notes to the very end
tells you his passion, his commitment to this type of work.

I'll also take a moment to make fun of him, because that's what I like to do and I like someone,
is we were going to have this event sooner, but he was in Kauai,
so he's a well-traveled man, it's been a pleasure to really work with him.

Katherine and I, he took us up on a dusty dirt road to show us other plaques,
and if you are ever into this work, he is the guy,
it's just been wonderful to get to know him and what he does for our community.

Up next we have our county superintendent of schools, Mr. Scott Lay.

Thanks Andrew, I'll be very brief because we need to get to the important people who attended the school here,
but as the county superintendent of school and a fifth generation Nevada County resident,
the history of Nevada County, especially when it comes to education, is really important to me.

I'm Katherine Baker-Boswell back there, and I are cousins,
and our grandparents attended major schools, attended the Indian Flat School,
and so I love these little schools, I love going around, I love seeing them, preserving them,
and making sure everybody understands the importance of it.

We had people like Shirley Beale come out of Kentucky Flat, who's a colleague of mine and just an amazing person.

You know, there was such a richness of a K-8 school,
and what you could do here, so I love it.

We had over 44, I think I've talked with Chuck and Bernie,
and I don't think there's a true exact count of the number of districts,
but the number we have at the county office is 44 of these little schools that pop up around the county,
and we want to preserve that and work with the Metropolitan Land and Market Commission to make sure
that it's noted in the people who go, whether they're still standing at the private residence,
or the community center, or the site where they're standing.

Anyway, thank you, Andrew, for letting me speak briefly,
and I'm excited to hear about what the actual attendees of this school say and what they remember.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, so Scott took my tagline, saving the best for last.

Again, today is about the history of our community, the history of this building,
the support from the Historical Landmarks Commission,
but we have some real pioneers, some real amazing historians here, our former students.

So how many of you are former students at this school?
Awesome, wonderful.

What any of you like to speak today?
Awesome, thank you, sir.

Yeah, just tell us a bit about when you were here, and that's awesome.

Wonderful.

I encourage others to comment and spread me out.

I was here from 60 to about 63 or 4.

Oh, my name is Dave DeMartini.

We just lived right there, so it was a quick, easy walk.

Some of the things I remember we had, Mrs.

McKittrick was our teacher.

She was wonderful.

She lived down on McKittrick Ranch Road, not too far.

And I'm not sure how she managed, you know, eight grades in teaching that.

We got help from the older students, I think.

I learned to read.

I don't remember that part very much at all, really.

The fun part I remember is, of course, the recess.

And I learned to play baseball over there.

It was considered a home run if you could hit it over that rock.

I learned the game of Annie Annie Over.

We threw a ball over the roof there, a group was on that side, a group was on this side,
we threw the ball over and drove around and tried to catch it.

I don't know all the rules.

There was a lot of fun.

And, of course, we had some great class members that I remember, the Pratt twins,
and the Miller personini, Bob personini, Bill, and Don, and Thurley,
and the many families that lived close by.

It was a great enriching experience as a young person.

So I thought it was great.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Awesome, thank you much.

David, does your mom still have her painting in the class in the school?
I don't know.

So she painted a picture of the school and gave it to my dad, and then we gave it to the school.

So hopefully it's still in there.

I only have trouble with your mom, right?
You look like you're related to this guy.

Hi.

Hey, I'm Marty Martini.

I'm Dave's brother, and I also went to school here.

I was one of the little ones.

I went to here in 61 to 63.

My dad, James D.

Martini, was a member of the school board,
and I'm not, I can't quite remember, but he might have been the chairman as well
at the time we had to close it.

It was really sad to me to not go to school here anymore,
and to have to drive all the way to Grass Valley to go to school in some foreign, crazy place.

But we had so much fun here, and one of my fondest memories was climbing on those rocks over there.

And just about everybody that went to school here, that was one of our favorite things as little types,
climbing over there on those big granite boulders.

Anyway, this was a fun place.

We had eight grades here, and every grade had their little area or corner
where they would meet up, and Mrs.

McKittrick would come around and supervise each little area.

And I don't know how she did it, because we were kind of pretty wild funds.

One of our favorite things to do, and I know Mrs.

McKittrick wasn't really fond of it,
but at lunch break, sometimes we would, a group of us, we'd all head over to Deer Creek,
which is only about all mile away, or half mile.

We'd head over there with our fishing poles, and we'd go fishing.

And when the fishing was good, we'd kind of forget to come back to school.

Of course, we got reprimanded the next day, or later in the day,
and Mrs.

McKittrick wasn't real happy with this.

Over on one side of the chalkboard, we had a list of detention that she listed all our names
and how much time we had to make up.

Unfortunately, I can't say that I wasn't on the list a time or two.

But anyway, it was a fun place.

We really learned a lot, because we learned at our own speed with supervision,
and we learned a lot about things besides the three Rs, just in a great community out here.

And I'm very thankful, having the opportunity to go to school here.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Mark's also historic, is that Mark and I are in the first graduating class of Lyman-Gilmore.

Oh!
We closed one down and opened another one.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak today? Please, come on up.

This is fun.

Thank you.

Hi, I am Linda First and Annie Miller,
and I was here until halfway through my eighth grade year, and they closed the school.

So I was distressed, because at that time, Nevada Union was a three-year school.

It was sophomore, junior, senior.

So I had to trek to Grass Valley to the huge junior high, which is now, I don't know what,
Sierra Mountains, where Marty is, Sierra Mountain, whatever.

And it was really a hard adjustment for me to go from this nurturing environment to a big school.

I don't know what I would have done in LA or somewhere like that.

We had Christmas pageants here, Sharon and Shirley, because they made it through all the way through eighth grade,
and we got to be the Virgin Mary at the Christmas pageant.

We did songs.

Uncle Lawrence was Santa Claus, which we figured out later in life.

You didn't figure that out when you were in first and second grade.

The kids are inside.

It's okay.

Yeah.

But there's a lot of great memories.

The rock was the big rock at that time.

It doesn't look quite so big now.

We did.

We played horses down.

We called the area back behind the rock down in the hole, so you'd go down there and have horse stalls and run around.

It was a pretty magical time to grow up, and even though Mrs.

McKittrick probably had 30, 35 kids in all eighth grades,
I don't think anybody ever felt like they were left out or didn't have an opportunity to learn.

My brother told a story.

He won't come up, but he told a story that the school was about to close because there were so few.

What year would that have been, Phil?
42.

The school was down to five.

At the minimum, they could keep it open for five students, and we were just about to lose it, and Lester moved in.

The Lester family moved in, and I wish Bob and Pam—
I wish they had too.

I wish they could be here today because Bob was—both of them were huge supporters in the community and wonderful neighbors.

I wish they could have shared this today, as well as a lot of other folks that haven't.

Thank you very much.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak or say a few words today?
With that, I think hopefully we can mingle and hang out.

We'll unveil that in just a moment.

I just really wanted to say, what you're talking about, as much as society has changed, that same great work, that same love and care of your teacher,
learning by doing, a feeling personally, is still happening.

The schools might look bigger.

Society might be different.

We might have these crazy things called cell phones that connect us and disconnect us from each other,
but we still have wonderful people in this community doing great, just dedicated, full-heart work for kiddos.

If you ever would like to get more involved in the Grass Valley School District, we welcome you.

It's been an honor to be a custodial of this building and be a part of this.

It was a team effort.

We certainly purchased the plaque, but we wouldn't have the plaque.

We wouldn't have the accuracy.

We wouldn't have this without everyone's work.

And so with that, our amazing plaque for our amazing schoolhouse.

Thank you.