Artesia School House

One room, built in 1876, and by most accounts the first country school the Lompoc Valley ever had. Children learned here for 85 years before it closed in 1961. A fire nearly ended the story — but the little white-and-yellow building was hauled to Chestnut Avenue in 1972, restored, and reopened as a museum. Inside you'll find original desks, inkwells, worn readers, even a dollhouse built to look like the school itself. It's small, it's oddly specific, and it survived. That's more than most one-room schoolhouses can say.