Coats School
one-room school in Benton County, United States of America
The Coats School is a historic one-room schoolhouse in rural Benton County, Arkansas. It is located near the end of Coats Road (County Road 391), near Spavinaw Creek, south of Maysville. It is built of ashlar cut stone, with rusticated stone at the corners. It has a gable roof of tin, with a central chimney. Built c. 1905, it is a rare example of high-quality stone work in a vernacular building of modest proportions.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Coats School” as one-room school in Benton County, United States of America. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as one-room school in Benton County, United States of America. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19461064. Authority coordinates are 36.352, -94.568. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905 and 1988.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Coats School”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Coats School primary sources, Coats School archive and Coats research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Coats School”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Coats School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.