Historic classroom hidden in Auburn's City Hall

One room in Auburn's City Hall is not like the others. Opening the door is like stepping back in time to 1916, when the Auburn Grammar School opened and was celebrated as a showcase of modern architecture and education. It is a hidden gem in Auburn. When modern students visit this classroom today, they get to sit in antique desks to experience a typical 1916 school day. On every desk is a slate, chalk and a chalk brush. A docent will take them through an abbreviated school day, starting with morning rituals and including arithmetic, reading, history and art. They learn how schools of the past and today are alike and different by engaging in interactive lessons using the tools of an early 20th-century classroom: primers, slates, chalk and blackboards. Students of that era spent considerable time practicing cursive and recitation. Today's classroom tours are designed to address some of the California state social studies history curriculum. Some curriculum connections, for example, include discussion of citizens who made important contributions to our community. The list includes the names of real people, including Bernhard Bernhard, a farmer; Claude Chana, a French miner who discovered gold in Auburn; and Sarah Jane Dunlap, a landowner and the first suffragist in Northern California. Others on the list include farmers, bankers, hotel owners, teachers, doctors and storekeepers. Other connections young people make are examples of how communities change over time. The walls and cabinets of the classroom are bursting with photos and other mementoes from over the past 100 years. The building's architect, William Henry Weeks (1864-1936), is recognized as one of the west's significant institutional architects. Weeks is best known for his innovative designs of school buildings that encompassed high engineering standards and safety features. For example, he incorporated lessons learned from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, and he designed 200 schools and 22 Carnegie Libraries. In 2012, the landmark building won inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, Room 20 is the sole remaining classroom from that era, and tours are available to the public. Call the Placer County Historical Society to schedule a school tour or general tour for any of the public: 530-823-2128 or email April.pchs@gmsail.com. Placer Museum Docent Christie Brzyscz, who was a fifth-grader in this classroom in 1960, remembers her teacher fondly. "Mrs. Best loved poetry, and she played strings in the Auburn Symphony," Brzyscz recalls. "I adored her, and I loved to stay after school so that I could wipe down desks and feed the fish. One of my favorite poems, and one of the many that we memorized, was 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost." Thanks to the dedication and generosity of the Auburn Union Retired Teachers, the Placer County Historical Museum Foundation and the Placer County Historical Society, this classroom was restored and dedicated in 1996. It is named the Benton Welty Historic Classroom in honor of Benton Welty, who was principal from 1923-43. Opening the door to this classroom can help us understand what it was like to sit in an American classroom in an era when World War I was rumbling in Europe. Today's children can sit in the desks of their great-great grandparents and get a sense of the passage of time.