Council votes to return schoolhouse building to Dayton

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

With plans progressing for the eventual construction of a Community Response and Resource Center on the property where the Fernley Depot sits, the City of Fernley has decided it has no use for the former Churchill School Building #4, which sits behind the Depot.

At their April 5 meeting, the Fernley City Council decided the best way to get rid of the building is to send it back where it came from.

The council voted to offer the building back to the Historical Society of Dayton Valley, asking only that the Historical Society move the building back themselves.

The building was originally located on the Quilici Ranch in Dayton, in 1914. In 1951, former county commissioner Dick McCulloch gave the school to the World War II Veterans from a meeting hall, if they could move it to Fernley. The building was moved to the northeast corner of West Street in Fernley, where the VFW held meetings until about 1972. In 1976 the building was moved to the In Town Park by the Bi-Centennial Committee.

Then, in 2000, the Town of Fernley and former Lyon County commissioner Leroy Goodman offered the Old School to the Fernley Preservation Society to save it from vandals and water damage. The FPS accepted the school to be located at 675 East Main Street, the Fernley Depot property.

There, the building sits on a concrete slab and is not in use or connected to utilities.

The council’s options were to work the old schoolhouse into the scope of the Community Response and Resource Center project, donate it back to the Dayton community, move the building or demolish it.

Because the building has no cultural significance to Fernley, the council voted to see if the Historical Society of Dayton Valley would like the building back.

“As a former member of the Dayton Historical Society, I would jump at the opportunity to get it back,” Councilman Albert Torres said.