A school building was erected in 1851 by Hammond Shoemaker on his farm south of Columbia for his children and neighboring families, and Shoemaker was the only doctor along the Kaskaskia Cahokia Trail, a major pioneer thoroughfare across Illinois Territory. A new brick school building was built on the farm in 1867 by Fred Koch Construction for $800, and in 1891, under a new school law, the one-room school was organized as Shoemaker District #4. Shoemaker School became part of the Columbia School District in 1950, but because its directors had already contracted Marian Maag to teach for the 1950-51 term before consolidation, the old school remained open for one final year. In 1992, the building was moved to its present site to avoid demolition caused by the widening of Illinois 3. After the City of Columbia acquired it in 2009, the school was transformed into the Monroe County Welcome Center and associated facilities, and in 2018 it was transformed again into Pop-Up Shop Columbia, Illinois, where retail entrepreneurs can test business concepts while visitors experience the history of the one-room school. Monroe County also contains a number of European-style stone arch bridges, a design first used by the Roman Empire for bridges and aqueducts and still valued for withstanding extreme conditions; German immigrants in the mid 18th century adapted this design using abundant local limestone to build bridges over area streams and creeks, and many still stand. A commemorative plaza outside the schoolhouse entrance identifies more than 60 one-room schools that dotted Monroe County in 1900, and three still remain in Columbia today: Shoemaker, Sandbank, and St. Paul Lutheran Schools.