Michael Bridenbaugh, who settled in Riley Township in 1835, and his wife Jemima sold a half-acre of land to the Riley Township school board in 1873 for what became Bridenbaugh District #3 School, reflecting the common practice of naming one-room schools for the people who furnished the land. The first school on the site was a wooden structure built in 1878, and it was replaced by a brick building in 1889. The school operated until 1927, when the district was consolidated and students began attending classes in nearby Pandora. The Bridenbaugh family later purchased the building and used it for storage, as happened with other former one-room schools, but unlike many that later fell into disuse and were razed, this one was restored by the Bridenbaughs beginning in 1995. It opened in August 1997 with a reunion of its last teacher, Mildred George, and some of her former students. The restoration received an Award of Merit from the Ohio State Historical Preservation Office in 2000, and in 2005 the school was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as a well-preserved example of a typical one-room school of the rural Midwest.