Mantua Center School is a historic building located in the Mantua Center area of Mantua Township, Portage County, Ohio, United States. It was built in 1914 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 4, 2013. The building was listed as an example of early 20th century educational and Neoclassical architecture in rural Portage County and one of the few remaining buildings from that era still standing.Until 2004, the building was in use as a school, known as Mantua Center Elementary School. It housed grades kindergarten through four as one of four elementary schools in the Crestwood Local School District. Previously, the building had served first as a grades 1–12 school for students in Mantua Township, known as the Mantua Township School, and after 1948 as a school for grades 1–7 following consolidation of the Mantua Township and Mantua Village school districts. It continued as a 1–7 building until the late 1950s when Crestwood Middle School opened. An addition with a multi-purpose gymnasium and stage was completed in 1964.Following the conclusion of the 2003–04 school year in June, the building was closed and sold to the Mantua Township Trustees. It, along with three other elementary schools in the district, was replaced by two new consolidated elementary schools, one for grades K–2 and the other for grades 3–5. Since then, the newer portion of the building has functioned as a community center while the original building has limited use for office space by the township government.HistoryDuring the early days of public education in Ohio, schools were divided into several small districts centered on a one-room schoolhouse. In the late 19th century, a movement started to centralize these schools into a single building with students divided into grade levels. The first school district to centralize in Portage County was Ravenna City in 1859 followed by Kent nine years later. Many of the more rural township schools, however, did not start centralizing schools until the early 20th century. Mantua Township centralized schools in 1903, housing students in buildings in and around what is now the Mantua Center District.
