Doors Open offers rare chance to step back in time

A rare glimpse inside the Mohawk Trail School is being offered this weekend.

The one-room school, known as S.S. No. 5 Barton back in the day, will be one of the stops on the annual Doors Open tour that runs Saturday and Sunday.

“The building is set up with the original type of desks that were used in the 1880s,” says John Aiken, manager of the Educational Archives and Heritage Centre, which looks after the old building.

“People can ring the school bell if they wish to.”

The school, which opened in 1882, once served most of the southwest Mountain, it operated until mid-1960s, at which time a second building on the site was used. In 1967, the Hamilton Teachers Council and volunteers renovated the structure, including restoring the belfry and reinstalling the school bell.