Schools in Beavertown

The first school in Beavertown was a subscription school operated by Mr. “Blue” Moyer. (The blue nickname came from his cruelty to his students. His first name is unknown.) This was for three months of each year. Although Pennsylvania passed laws authorizing local school boards to tax citizens to operate public schools, Beaver Township was the last municipality in the Commonwealth to act on this authority. The first public school houses were located on the corner lot where William Specht lived and in the southeast corner of the present Union Cemetery. It is said that the children from one side of Main Street attended one school, while those living on the other side went to the other. During the winter they would meet on Main Street for snow ball battles.

Then in 1875 a two story brick building, known as The Academy, was built east of the cemetery but this was condemned because it wasn’t substantially built. It is said that when the wind blew hard it shook the ink out of the inkwells on the desks. In a wind storm one day, and while the students were marching in cadence up the stairs, it started to collapse. All were safely evacuated, and then ...Crash ... KA BOOM!!! ... it fell down.

The next school was built by Moses Specht in 1880 near where the Academy fell down. There have been many changes made in the structure of the building and at the present it is the four-room brick structure, known as the Borough Building. Another building used for a school house was first located on the vacant lot next to Aaron Snyder’s home. This was later rolled down the hill to where Annie Thomas lived, presently owned by Barry Hackenberg, and was used for a high school. Later the high school was in the second story of Bailey’s Restaurant building (presently the Susquehanna Bank building) and then in 1927 it came to the what is now the Borough Building and in 1928 the first land grant high school in the nation was built and was named the Beaver Vocational High School, now a site of controversy.

To be continued

Facts About Our Zip Code

Here is the first installment of facts about our Zip Code, not our Borough only, but about all of 17813.

General Information:

Latitude: 40.768922

Longitude: -77.178546

Population: 1861

Density: 51.94 (people per square land mile)

Housing Units: 820

Land Area: 35.83 sq. mi.