The Columbia School (see photo), located about a half mile west of Joerger Road ( this is the correct spelling of this road) was closed in 1946 when it was consolidated with the Auburn Elementary School District. Harold Hubbard, owned the land where the building was located. After the school closed, he bought the structure for $250 and remodeled it for a residence. A woodshed used by the school still stands at the site.

Three generations of the Hubbard family attended the school on Bell Road. The late Herman Oest said once that when the Hubbards were asked to stand up, the "whole class stood up". Fond memories of the activities there are still treasured by the Hubbard descendants. The school held classes from 1883 to 1946 and the building was demolished in the late 1960's.

To foster the memories of the old school, the bell that rang out from the tower atop the building donated to the Benton Welty Historic Classroom Museum in the Auburn Civic Center, site of the old Lincoln Way School, by Hubbard family members. The old bell has followed a circuitous route and had several owners before it ended up in the Lincoln Way School building. When Harold Hubbard, who died in 1962 acquired the Columbia building, Joe Snyder acquired the bell for Elmer Baxter to use to summon assistance. The bell was later displayed in the Baxter Store, by the late Margaret Dashiell until Richard Hubbard obtained the bell for placement in a museum. It was decided the old classroom established at the former Lincoln Way School would be the ideal place. At a ceremony, the bell was re-dedicated. Hubbard, his cousins, former Columbia students, Albert and LaVern Hubbard and other Hubbard relatives and Auburn City Councilman O. C. Taylor whose mother, Violet Hubbard Taylor attended the school, were at the ceremony.

"It was nice to think that a bell that was calling children to school 100 years ago is in a place where so many people can go and see it and remember a simpler time", said Susan Hubbard Owen, daughter of Richard and Evelyn Hubbard. . "Children walked to school with their brothers, sisters and cousins and shared their learning experiences with their families as well as their friends".

Richard Hubbard recalls hearing the bell ring all the way from our homes some two miles away. "My sister Helen and I did the janitor work at the school. We split $5.00 a month for doing the job.

(See the web site for information about visiting the old classroom.)