Lower Shell School House
a.k.a. Shell Valley Old Stone School House
U.S. 14, Greybull, WYThe Lower Shell Valley Stone School House is an outstanding representative example of the vanishing one-room schoolhouse and embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type of construction employed by pioneer masons utilizing indigenous building materials. In addition, the use of the schoolhouse as a community meeting place for 70 years and as a center for education for nearly fifty years associates the building with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of Wyoming's educational and social /humanitarian history and development. Not only does the building retain its integrity, but the landscape also has unimpaired visual integrity so the historic ecological relationships remain unaltered. The Lower Shell Valley Stone School House is a visual symbol of the process by which human beings organized their frontier communities and lived together in a group while promoting the education and social development necessary to a civilized society. As one of the few remaining, intact one-room schoolhouses in Wyoming, the Lower Shell Valley Stone School House is worthy of recognition by enrollment on the National Register of Historic Places.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.