Sutter Creek

Sutter Creek Grammar School

The Sutter Creek Grammar School is no longer filled with kids and teachers intent on schoolin,’ but it ain’t empty neither. The thirty-five by fifty-five foot, two-story brick schoolhouse was probably completed and furnished by the start of the new school year in September of 1870, at a cost to the community of $10,000. It was built to replace the second schoolhouse, constructed in 1857, which was destroyed by fire on May 16 of 1870. The Amador Ledger reported: “The fire was undoubtedly the work of an incendiary and the probable result of a little ‘onpleasantness’ which has existed in that place for sometime past in regard to school matters.” The “onpleasantness” may have been a controversial Sunday school issue which had divided much of the community. Two competent teachers somehow managed to preside over a daily attendance of some two hundred pupils. The schoolhouse is no longer used as such, it now serves as a community center after having been restored by the Sutter Creek Women’s Club. It stands on a slight hill east of Main Street.