By Chris Pattillo

January 2026

The original Strawberry School was a one-room schoolhouse located on a one-acre site at the intersection of Grange Road and Guenza Road, about one-half mile south of the Bennett Valley Grange. It opened in 1857 and was named for the wild strawberries that grew in the area. The building was a vernacular wood-frame one-room schoolhouse with restrained Classical Revival influences, characterized by a front-gabled roof, clapboard siding, tall sash windows, and a simple gabled entry porch—typical of rural California public school architecture circa 1880–1915.

In 1877, a petition was circulated to build a new schoolhouse. An article in the Petaluma Weekly Argus described the deplorable condition of the existing building, stating that “it is in very poor condition, wholly unfit for the purpose for which it is made to serve. It is situated on a wind-beaten hill, without a tree to shelter it from the cold wet wind or the scorching rays of the summer sun.”

The article went on to compare the school site unfavorably with the Grange and added: “It seems strange that a community should show so much enterprise in erecting such a structure in which meetings are only occasionally held, and so little in the matter of providing a suitable place for the daily assembling of their children for the greater part of the year. It would be more creditable to the district if the hall were poor and the schoolhouse good, than the way it exists at present.”

The article also noted that the school was adequately funded by the district, having received ninety dollars to maintain the school for seven months of the year. Charles B. Crane was in charge of the school and, according to the writer, “is conducting it with credit to himself and profit to his patrons.” At that time, approximately thirty students were enrolled.

The new Strawberry School opened in August 1880 and was located at 4550 Sonoma Mountain Road. The one-acre property was deeded to the district by Steve Story. Mr. Story and W. Philips served as school trustees. The following year, an assessment was made to raise $500 for improvements. In 1888, the teacher’s annual salary was $559, and enrollment had declined to twenty students. Miss Teresa Phillips taught at the school from at least 1896 to 1899, and Miss Julie O’Mera was also teaching there in 1896. In 1888, a barn was added to house students’ horses.

By 1917, enrollment remained small, with only twenty-six students, and Strawberry School continued to function as a small rural school. The building burned in 1952, forcing classes to move to the Grange, where they were held until 1954. At that point, Bennett Valley students appear to have been absorbed into other schools—possibly Bennett Valley School—and Strawberry School ceased to exist. In 1977, a new Bennett Valley elementary school opened on Horseshoe Drive and was named Strawberry.

Note: Researching this story was confusing partly because the school location changed from Grange to Sonoma Mountain Road, and partly because that 1877 article also described a separate school that was “four miles east of Santa Rosa, on the road leading through Bennett Valley to Sonoma.” Then there was the Bennett Valley School. If any of our readers can lend clarity we’d love to hear from you. Sources I used are John P. Talbots book Beneath the Mountain of the Burning Bird, several historic newspaper articles, and the Sonoma County Library Photo Collection.