school land

[ksfarmer]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
In the state of Kansas who owned the land that one room country schools were built on? Was the land owned by the school or was it just set aside for school use as long as the school was open?

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

Historically, both. In some instances, a wealthy local would set aside an out of the way piece of their land and build a schoolhouse on it, where their children, along with other local children, could be educated. In other instances, the land would be donated.

 

[FarmerJ]

If your curious you can view plat maps that may tell you , Many of those one room and some of the larger 2 room school structures have been kept in use ( Southfork twp , Kanabec county MN uses a old one room sch as TWP hall , Many others were sold , another about 8 miles south east of me is used as a barn, ,Ive seen some converted into houses) I doubt that many are truly abandoned and that many were sold cheaply to someone even if all they did was till and plant right up with in a couple feet of the old school , like another twps school to my east, the owner there plants all the way around the building while it slowly is caving in , fair odds the owner will just burn it down some day or let it be used for training fire fighters, Your county govt center or even your twp clerk may have a plat map that you can view on hand on site (in offices) Keep in mind most of them were built before so called property tax system was created so eventually un used ones likely were sold off to get the land back on the property tax rolls.

 

[nextwife]

A complete title search should show who owns the land. It is likely some government entity if it was a public school.

 

[ksfarmer]

The reason I am asking about this is that we have an old school building on one acre of land in our township that everyone thought belonged to the township. The building was falling apart and blowing onto neighboring property. We thought we would give it to the owner of the land that it was originaly part of if he would clean it up. Upon checking with the regester of deeds we can find no record of the township owning this land and no record of the school district ever owning it. I think that it may have been set aside for the school to use as long as there was a school and then went back to the property that it came out of. The township trustee clames that the owner of the land it came out of doesn't own it and he is upset that he has started to farm it and has removed the building. Since the township doesn't own it I don't care what anyone does with it but I am just curious about who does own it.

 

[nextwife]

The reason I am asking about this is that we have an old school building on one acre of land in our township that everyone thought belonged to the township. The building was falling apart and blowing onto neighboring property. We thought we would give it to the owner of the land that it was originaly part of if he would clean it up. Upon checking with the regester of deeds we can find no record of the township owning this land and no record of the school district ever owning it. I think that it may have been set aside for the school to use as long as there was a school and then went back to the property that it came out of. The township trustee clames that the owner of the land it came out of doesn't own it and he is upset that he has started to farm it and has removed the building. Since the township doesn't own it I don't care what anyone does with it but I am just curious about who does own it.

Only a thorough title search would provide that ino.