Tom Atchley will present “Beginning Education in the East San Bernardino Valley” when the Redlands Area Historical Society meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Contemporary Club, 173 S. Eureka St., Redlands.

The program is free and open to the public.

Atchley, vice president of the Historical Society, has researched education from the first schools in the San Bernardino Valley.

Using an adobe grain storage building as a classroom, Pedro Alvarez taught Native Americans living at the Guachama village irrigation and the planting of wheat, grains and vegetables using the Mill Creek Zanja water in 1819, according to a news release from Atchley.

In the 1850s, Olive Tenney traveled to Los Angeles and formed the Mission District before the establishment of San Bernardino County. Within two years the population of school children grew and a new school was established on Mission Road. The Mission District eventually had four schools, according to Atchley.

In the 1860s the number of school districts increased in San Bernardino, Yucaipa, Highland and San Timoteo Canyon. Most teachers did not have college degrees, and many schools began in tents with benches for seating, according to Atchley.

A two-room brick school building was built in San Bernardino in 1872, with one room called Washington and the other called Jefferson.

The Redlands school district was formed in 1884, with a school for 12 students in a home on West Palm Avenue. Rosa Belle Robbins, who had taught English to Native Americans in 1872 in Crafton, became the first teacher in the Redlands district, according to Atchley.

Redlands then purchased property at the corner of Cypress Avenue and Cajon Street for $300 and built a school on skids for easy travel to student populations, according to Atchley.

Atchley has collected early school photos from the area during the past 50 years, and those will be included in his program.

For information about the Redlands Area Historical Society, go to rahs.org.