The District Number 50 school in Essig, Minnesota, opened in 1912. Children attend this one-room school until the eighth grade. After that, they went to high school in New Ulm, about eight miles away. A barn was located next to the schoolhouse for the horses that the teacher and students typically used to commute to class. It’s since been demolished.
A major round of consolidating school districts took place throughout the 1960s and 1970s in Minnesota. This section of Brown County faced the same fate as these small country schools were closed and students shifted to larger schools in bigger towns. The last classes were held here in 1971.
Today, the old schoolhouse is occasionally used as a community center and Milford Town Hall.
