School’s in session at Silver Dollar City. Forget the Wi-Fi and swap smartboards for chalkboards—this classroom runs on old-fashioned fun.
Emily Clarke plays the spirited schoolmarm, Ms. Evelyn, at the helm of this historic one-room schoolhouse. Dressed in a high-neck blouse, long skirt and wire-rimmed glasses, she welcomes guests into a bygone era, when multiplication tables were memorized, cursive was king and a good spelling bee could settle almost any playground dispute.
“We want our visitors to feel immersed in those good ol’ days,” Emily says with a smile. “I always played school when I was little at a one-room school back home in Massachusetts, so being the old-time teacher here is a childhood dream come true.”
Tucked just off Town Square in the Homestead, the Oak Trail School is a faithful replica of an 1873 building that once stood in Blue Eye, Missouri. “We wanted to save the original and bring it to our City, but it got flooded during dam construction, so we had to recreate it thoughtfully from the ground up.
But this little building holds more than history—it also has a bit of Hollywood.
“Construction on the school was underway during filming of The Beverly Hillbillies https://www.ozarkly.com/stories/beverly-hillbillies/ here in the 1960s,” Emily shares. “Buddy Ebsen, who played Jed Clampett, said he knew how to hew logs. He hopped right in and prepared one to be placed. That’s a little bit of trivia that makes this place even more magical.”
Emily hopes her character—and the carefully crafted setting—acts as a time machine, transporting guests to the 1880s, when students sat at creaky wooden desks and scribbled math problems with chalk.
“It’s hard for kids to imagine school without high-tech toys and calculators,” she explains. “I get to encourage them to put down their phones and pick up a slate!”
For Emily, there’s absolute joy in watching students experience school as it once was.
“I love how their mouths drop when I tell them they would’ve had their siblings in class with them and there was no AC,” she laughs. “Sometimes I’ll write arithmetic problems on the board and they’ll try to solve them with their phone’s calculator. It’s fun to say, ‘No, no, no, we’re figuring these out on our own!"
From arithmetic to history lessons, each “class” is tailored to the kids’ interests and questions. Sometimes that means choosing a classic craft; sometimes, they’re up for a bigger challenge.
“We had one group of kids who wanted to practice trigonometry, and I said, ‘Have fun with that.’ I’ll stick to basic arithmetic,” she chuckles.
Perhaps the greatest reward for Emily, in her role as Ms. Evelyn, is giving families a moment to slow down.
As Public Relations Manager for the Silver Dollar City Company, she is eager to tap into her journalism background to hunt down “heart tugs” to write about—those stories that celebrate…
