Willow Tree School (Richland #1) was representative of Iowa's 12,623 rural schools that formed the state's rural school system from 1858 to 1966. Iowa developed an equitable public school system for farm children in grades one through eight, with one teacher per school, and each school served families within a four-square-mile area so children had no more than a two-mile walk. After the Civil War, the rural school system helped create a distinct Iowa culture by educating and assimilating more than a million immigrant farm settlers who, despite speaking different languages and coming from different cultures, created a Corn Belt economy out of tall grass prairie within thirty years. Although Iowa was mostly rural, by 1901 it tied for the most literate state and maintained that status while also achieving top test scores in the nation during the system's operation. At this school, Sebastian Buehler, a decorated Civil War Union soldier who had immigrated from Germany in 1855 at age 9, became the first to buy land in Richland Township, Sac County, in 1871, before Odebolt was platted in 1877. He was followed by his brother-in-law Valentino Rudolph, his brother Jacob, and others he invited. Sebastian donated an acre at the northeast tip of Section 11 for the school and became its first teacher. The school operated from 1883 until 1951, then served as the Richland 4-H Boys Clubhouse until it was sold in 1959 for $281.50 to Harold and Ruth Boney for use as a livestock building. In 2011, Curtis and Carol Raasch donated it to the City of Odebolt, and Sebastian Buehler's great-grandson Don Hoefling and great-great-grandson Dale Hoefling moved it to Odebolt Legacy Square.