School of Rock

White Rock School

Date Visited:  August 3, 2019

Stop:  #32

“In the words of AC/DC: We roll tonight... to the guitar bite... and for those about to rock... I salute you.”  Dewey Finn, School of Rock

We were rolling, alright, and the prospect of visiting a site called White Rock School had Sarah referring to it as our visit to the School of Rock.  White Rock, that is.  Our journey continued southward along M-25, heading to an area that, back in the day, was a bustling, vibrant community, but today . . . well, not so much.  White Rock, which is 9.9 miles south of Harbor Beach, is a tiny unincorporated community of Sherman Township at the mouth of White Rock Creek on the shore of Lake Huron.  The community is named for a large white boulder located offshore in Lake Huron.  This boulder (which was several times larger back then than it is now) was used as a boundary marker to define the territory ceded by the Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandot, and Potawatomi nations with the Treaty of Detroit in 1807.  Native Americans considered this rock as sacred ground and left offerings of food on it.  Today, it is barely visible as high-water levels, erosion, and lightning strikes have reduced its size and visibility. 

There are many stories about this rock, but one of the more popular ones describes the tale of a group of settlers who wanted to have a square dance on the rock.  They were warned by local Native Americans that the rock was sacred and they should not go forward with their plans.  Ignoring the warnings, two sets of settlers headed out to the rock by canoe.  All of them, except for one, who decided to heed the warnings of the Native Americans, unloaded and began their celebration.  All of a sudden, a bolt of lightning struck the rock and killed everyone on it.  The only survivor was the lone settler who did not ignore the warning offered by the Native Americans.

The first white settler to this area was Edward Petit, who established a trading post on nearby Shebeon Creek.  He later moved his trading post to White Rock.  By the mid-1830’s, White Rock was a thriving community as it became a fishing and lumbering port and commerce hub.  Maps from that period actually have this community named White Rock City.  In 1859, White Rock got its own post office.  However, for those of you who have been reading my blog, you will know that a catastrophic natural disaster took place in 1871 – the Great Fire of 1871 – and the village of White Rock was completely destroyed.  It was never rebuilt to the size it had been prior to the fire, and today, there are very few homes in the area and nothing much left to suggest that there was ever a “city” here.

As we approached White Rock, it became apparent that the coordinates we had were incorrect (again).  There was a faux lighthouse where the coordinates said a schoolhouse should be.  We drove a bit further south on M-25 but saw no schoolhouse.  So, we retraced our route back to White Rock Road and decided to turn and head west.  As we were driving, with all of us looking in every direction for any sign of a schoolhouse, I happened to notice a very small sign at the end of a driveway that said “White Rock School Museum.”  I’m being generous calling it a driveway – more of a horse-drawn cart path – but we turned left onto it and headed south.  The driveway ran along the eastern edge of a big open field, and tucked in the far back, just inside the treeline, was the school and several out-buildings.  The historical marker was at the end of the driveway, and it looked like it had seen better days.  It was listing severely to the right (as you are looking at it with the schoolhouse behind it) and much of the paint around the border had peeled off, but at least all the words were legible. 

This was actually the third schoolhouse built in White Rock.  The first schoolhouse was built after the Great Fire of 1871 only to be destroyed ten years later in the Great Fire of 1881.  The second schoolhouse burned to the ground in 1908.  The current building was constructed in 1909 and is made of brick and contains two rooms.  The historical marker tells us that 25 students attended class at that time, and the teacher was paid $40 per month.  Students continued to attend classes here until the school was closed in 1968.  The school was purchased several years later by the Huron County Historical Society and converted into a museum.  It is only open by appointment, and is set up to represent a typical school day in the year 1909.  The museum includes several artifacts and documents, some dating back to the early 1800’s.  We were not able to get in the building (since we did not have an appointment), but we could peek in through the many windows around the building and were able to snap off a few photographs of the inside.

We walked about the grounds for a bit and observed the many outbuildings around the school.  Without a guide of some sort, it was difficult to know what the purpose of each building was, but it was obvious which ones were the outhouses!!!  After Kathy got her requisite number of flower pics, we loaded up and prepared for our next adventure.  But I would be remiss if we did not end this visit with a prayer, from Dewey Finn:

“God of [White] Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. We are your humble servants. Please give us the power to blow people's minds with our high voltage rock. In your name we pray, Amen.”

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