The Buckeye elementary school served the community around Shingle Springs for over 100 years before moving to the current site and unifying with the French Creek and United schools.  Besides being a place of education for the children, it served as a gathering place and a springboard to many other activities such as dances, card parties, boy scouts, 4-H and eventually the community center.   

 After the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, life in this area changed dramatically as the number of men grew out of proportion and attention was greedily focused on one aspect of the economy.  There are few records from this period and what happened must be pieced together from scattered records and bits of history in found in letters and diaries written by the pioneers and visitors to the area.

 Information from the early 1900s was increased by verbal history, as adults living during that period told stories to their children, and cameras became more common.  After World War II, the area experienced another spurt in population growth and from then until the unification of the school, there are more records, pictures and students still living to serve as sources of information.

 A brief summary of the Old Buckeye Elementary School’s history is as follows. 

 The school’s history begins in the fall of 1852 or 1853 in Buckeye Flat, a small community the grew up about a mile west of Shingle Springs to serve the 49ers, a number of whom were from Ohio. 

 After a store opened at Shingle Springs in 1857, Buckeye Flat began to decline and eventually the school was moved to Shingle Springs.  After the mines played out, Shingle Springs declined too, but held on until the arrival of the Placerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad in 1865 made it a major shipping terminus for the Comstock mines.  The completion of the transcontinental railroad diverted shipping to a closer terminal and Shingle Springs reverted to its form sleepy country town status. 

 World War II was another turning point for the area and the school. For the 1945-6 school year, a 2^nd teacher was hired, and for the 1947-48 school year, the 2^nd teacher was Mrs. Adeline Kaiser.  In the summer of 1948, a second room was added to the back of the school building.  The next year, the old woodshed was enclosed to make the second room larger.  The next summer work was started on a new bathroom that was completed after the 1950-51 school year started.  Somewhere about this time the State constructed a new section of US Highway 50 in front of the school. 

 The summer of 1952 saw a new classroom building under construction and a third teacher was hired for the 1952-53 school year.  The new room wasn’t completed in time for the new school year, so the year began with 2 teachers and six grades in the large room.  The Community Center was completed in the mid-1950s and graduation for the Class of 1956 was held at the new, larger facility and was the last class to graduate from the old school

 During the 1956-57 school year the “new classroom” and the students were moved to the new campus, which is close to the old town of Buckeye Flat and the original site of the school.        

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