Brick by Brick

Small Congregation, Big Commitment: Restoring the Tyrone School
Submitted by Aaron Coffman
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Thank you for being so willing to help share the word of the restoration that we are doing to the Tyrone Schoolhouse in Dawson, Pennsylvania. It does "take a village" and a determined one at that! The small congregation of the Tyrone Presbyterian Church has undertaken the preservation of our 1873 little brick schoolhouse and a capital campaign has been underway since the summer with a Rededication Ceremony.

The schoolhouse, being 150 years old, was experiencing structural cracking, settling, and significant mortar loss putting this building at risk. This project would place in phases as money is raised. Our goal for 2023 was to install three new windows on the building, have the weather side of the building repointed, and add gutters to the building.

Progress: We have installed the gutters, downspouts, installed two of the three windows, painted the oil tank, removed part of the broken sidewalk, and the weather side of the building has been cleaned, bricks restored, and repointed. We THANK everyone who has had a hand in this project thus far!

The next steps for this building, as funds are raised, is to continue to repoint, clean, and restore the brick on the building. This has not been done ever in the 150 year history of this building so to say the least it is a little past time. Next year, we also will be removing the chimney which was added on to the building sometime after it's closing as a schoolhouse and putting a vent back up through the roof in the same location as where the potbelly stove once was vented in it's second location.

The original stove was vented through the middle of the room and was later moved to the back corner where the chimney is present day.  We currently have a honeybee hive which has made it's home in the chimney. Luckily for us, they are not in the flu which means we can continue to use this building this winter for the Church's programs (Boy Scouts and Men's Dartball). We also have one more window to replace on the Schoolhouse which will be performed next year.

I should also note that all of the work except for the brick cleaning and repointing has been done by volunteers and the Boy Scouts of Troop 150 Scottdale PA. We are well over 100 volunteer hours for this year put into this schoolhouse and have invested around $7,000 into the school which for a Church Congregation of 20 people and an annual operating budget of around $30,000 is quite the investment, I must say.

​We have been blessed that many members of the Tyrone Presbyterian Church and the community have been very generous to financially supporting this project, but we are still around $15,000 away from the goal to get the rest of this schoolhouse preserved. Another side project that we will be working on in the future is renovating the restroom, but this is not something that was original to the building. It was added when this building was used as a barbershop/house. It serves us well today, but is not the best at preserving the historical integrity of the structure, so we are going to do our best to renovate it while also keeping the restroom. 

​(Editor's note: The good people of the Tyrone School will keep us posted. They have already proven that "Where there a will there's a way!")

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TYRONE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AND SCHOOL