Before the flooding of adjacent Melvern Lake, the tiny Welsh community of Arvonia could be found south of the Marais des Cygnes River and west of Coal Creek. It is 8 miles south of Osage City and 4 miles north of Lebo, another town settled by Welsh immigrants. The first school was taught in 1870, by Miss Anna Want, in Oscar Beck’s loghouse. The limestone schoolhouse still standing was built two years later. It was designed by John Haskell and built by James Rice. This was the only school for the small Welsh community until 1949, when the Arvonia was consolidated with nearby Lebo’s school district.
From the nomination for the National Historic Register:
“Arvonia School is located in the unincorporated village of Arvonia, Kansas, … four miles north of Lebo, in the southwest corner of Osage County. The east-facing building sits on a hill at the northwest corner of South Arvonia and West 325th Street and is surrounded by open prairie. Nearby buildings include the Calvinistic Methodist Church and Arvonia Township Hall. A second floor was removed early in its history because of structural concerns, but the building retains its original roof-line with cupola/bell tower, overhanging eaves with eave brackets, and historic scalloped shingle gable ornament. The window openings are extant, with stone sills and lintels. However, the openings are boarded over with large shutters because the historic sashes are missing.”
Arvonia was settled by John Mather Jones and Welsh followers in 1869. The town boasted a sawmill, a flour mill on the river, a general store, cheese factory, the Temporary Hotel, later Dooley Hotel, which went up in smoke in the 1880s, a blacksmith shop, and two churches, the still extant church and the Union Church, whose meetings were held in the hotel. Coal was mined nearby that fueled the Santa Fe Railroad.
Arvonia lost out on the early battle to secure the railroad which went to Lebo and Osage City instead.
Kansas One Room Schools 