Old Maizeland School (Rivera School)

Built in 1868 on Shugg Lane in what is now Pico Rivera, this one-room school taught the Rivera District's children in Los Angeles County; the Maizeland name is said to come from the corn grown along the lane. Walter Knott bought it around 1950 for the Ghost Town he was building in Buena Park as a tribute to pioneers, and near it he set down a second schoolhouse, bought at auction in Kansas. So a registered landmark stands in a park of salvaged lumber and imported buildings, just outside Boot Hill, inside the gate.

What the plaque says

Rivera (Old Maizeland) School This was the first school in the Rivera District, constructed in 1868, and previously located on Shugg Lane, now Slauson Avenue California Registered Historical Landmark No. 729 Plaque placed by the California State Park Commission in cooperation with the East Los Angeles Parlor No. 266, Native Daughters of the Golden West, November 13, 1960

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Puvungna — 8.0 mi
  The Acjachemen and Tongva place of creation: twenty-two acres of open ground on a university campus, still not in the hands of its people.
• Domínguez Rancho Adobe — 13 mi
  The first Spanish land grant in California contained the whole harbor, and in 1846 fifty Californio lancers turned back three hundred Marines on it.
• The Banning Museum — 15 mi
  The man who made a harbor out of an open bay: freight, dredging, the first railroad in Southern California, and a cupola for watching ships.
• Drum Barracks — 15 mi
  The Union Army built its Southern California headquarters in a county that had voted against Lincoln two to one, and stabled the Army camels here.

More markers nearby

• Pioneer House of the Mother Colony — 4.2 mi
• North Gate of City of Anaheim — 4.8 mi
• Old Santa Ana — 8.9 mi
• Long Beach Marine Stadium — 8.9 mi