Ballard: The Valley's Oldest Town and the Little Red Schoolhouse
Near Los Olivos, California
Between Los Olivos and Solvang lies Ballard, the smallest and oldest community in the Santa Ynez Valley. It was founded around eighteen eighty as the first stagecoach stop on the run between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, and it still holds two treasures from that era. The first is the Santa Ynez Valley Presbyterian Church, raised in eighteen eighty-nine.
The second, and most beloved, is the little red schoolhouse. Before it was built, valley children took their lessons in the local saloon, which suited no one. So in the early eighteen eighties the community put up a proper one-room school, painted red, and it quickly became the center of town life.
It served not just as a schoolhouse but as a church, a clubhouse, and a dance hall. The desks were screwed to the floor, so on dance nights people simply unscrewed them and cleared the room for a wooden dance floor under the lamplight. Remarkably, the little red schoolhouse is still a working school today, used by the youngest grades, one of the oldest schools in continuous use in all of California.
Tiny Ballard proves that the smallest place in the valley can hold the deepest roots.
