The one-room school played a vital part in the settling of the Big Bend region. In the eastern United States, the church was usually the first building that communities constructed, but in the West, the school held top priority.

School District 2 in Gibbon, for example, was established seven days after the Soldiers Free Homestead Colony arrived on the emigrant train from Omaha, and members were still living in railroad cars. No one had yet filed upon a homestead or preemption claim or had even been in the state a week. On April 22, 1871, thirteen days after their arrival, they voted to raise one thousand dollars to build a school house and appointed a building committee. By June 26, Mrs. Frank Chamberlain was teaching classes at a wage of thirty-five dollars a month.

In the years between 1870 and 1875, schoolhouses in Nebraska were being built at the rate of one per day. In Buffalo county alone, in the twenty-four years between 1871 and 1895, residents raised one hundred and twenty school buildings.

Children who attended the rural schools dotting the prairie ranged in age from five to twenty. Many students walked to school in worn-out boots and hand-me-down clothes and studied in poorly heated rooms with few books or school supplies. Many times soapstone served as chalk, teachers improvised chalkboards from wagon boxes and trunk lids, and lead pencils were rare. However, by 1900, according to Country School Legacy, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa boasted the highest literacy rate in the United States.

What accounted for this amazing success? Many elements contributed, but the most important factors included dedicated teachers, quality texts such as McGuffy's Fifth Reader, Harper's Arithmetic, and Harrington's Speller, the unlimited opportunity for a learner to progress through the grades at his or her own speed, the personal attention each child was able to receive from the teacher, the use of collaborative learning through group and peer tutoring, and the immense respect for education held by their pioneer parents, many of whom were poor immigrants with no formal schooling themselves. Education became the stepping stone to "Americanization" for many newcomers, sometimes the only means an entire family had of learning the English language.

Most people visualize a "schoolmarm" when they think of pioneer teachers, but, in reality, men were often preferred, partly because of tradition and partly to control the large and often rowdy farm boys. Surprisingly, in 1871 fifty-two percent of Nebraska teachers were men. Nebraska transported many teachers from the East, but often a local young man or woman would accept a teaching position as soon as he or she graduated from eighth grade. Pioneer teachers did have one characteristic in common. Male or female, eastern or western, they were generally very young; in 1919 the average age of Nebraska's schoolteachers was only twenty-one.

Teachers usually lived with families of the district, often sleeping with the children, staying the longest with the largest families and, consequently, with the least amount of food and space. Even as late as 1917, Merrick county teacher Helen Nordstrom boarded with district patrons, paying them twenty-five dollars of her fifty dollar paycheck for food and lodging. Others actually lived in their schoolhouses, often simple soddies or dugouts with pot-bellied stoves for warmth.

In the early years, teachers' salaries ranged from sixteen to thirty-five dollars annually, but the school terms were erratic. Sessions of from four weeks to three months were not uncommon with the fall term usually beginning in December. The seasons often determined the opening and closing dates, for during spring planting or fall harvest, families needed their sons and daughters at home to help in the fields. Finances also dictated the school year. District 15, founded in 1873 in what is now Riverdale, faced such difficulties. Often they had to hire an instructor who would teach until the tax money ran out. One year a tax levy failed, and the school could not open.

The schoolhouses themselves served a wider purpose than simply education, for they became social and cultural centers hosting school programs, literary society gatherings, dances, spelling bees, Grange meetings, box socials, card parties, and elections. The annual Christmas program was the highlight of the year. The buildings, few larger than twenty by thirty feet, also served as churches and held prayer services, Sundays schools, weddings, and funerals, usually non-denominational.

The "one-room school" legacy lives on in the Big Bend region. According to the Nebraska Education Directory: 1992-1993, twenty Class I rural schools with under twenty students still exist in the Big Bend region. Lincoln and Dawson counties each boast five small schools while Buffalo county has four. Hall and Adams counties list two schools apiece, and Polk and Platte each have one. Gosper, Kearney, Merrick, Hamilton, and Phelps counties no longer support such small schools. If the next category of twenty to twenty-five students were included, however, the list would be much longer.

Trailer or modular houses may have replaced soddies, and the one room may have expanded to two or three, but the same dedication to individual attention and peer counseling persists in small rural schools today, causing many to staunchly resist consolidation despite severe economic, legislative, and population pressures. Supporters argue that local control, lower taxes, and shorter bus routes justify small districts. Tradition, too, exerts a strong hold on rural communities where generations of families have attended the same school, often in the same building.

Nebraskans have always favored rural schools. In 1979 of the eleven hundred country schools remaining in the United States, 348 still held classes in Nebraska. Kansas had closed many of its small schools during World War II, and Colorado was down to fifteen districts. However, the number dwindles every year. Since 1985, thirty-eight Class I schools in the Big Bend region have dissolved and merged with other districts.

Although the numbers of "one-room" schools are diminishing, the social and cultural traditions they began continue to flourish, especially in the smaller communities of the Big Bend region. Townspeople still gather at the schools on election day, still host fund-raising events such as cakewalks, soup suppers, and raffles during sporting events, and still beam proudly as their children sing "O Tannenbaum" at the annual Christmas pageant.