For several months, improvements have been made at the old Danville Female Academy building, located off Highway 161.

Three Montgomery County residents – Red Niswonger, Justin Traughber and Becky Craven – teamed up to clean up the historic two-floor building. 

Now, they’re ready to throw a Christmas event at the building that will include a visit by Santa Claus, crafts and hot chocolate. The event, which is called Cookies, Crafts and Hot Cocoa with Santa, will run from 1 p.m.-4 p.m. Sunday and is hosted by Red’s Gas. which is located down west of the old school house.

Just two months ago, the building held a Halloween event in which Traughber dressed up as a clown.

“It turned out pretty good,” Traughber said. “I showed up in my costume, then I had to go. They didn’t know who I was. They had no clue. I didn’t take my mask off. Then, I left. I had to go to the haunted house at Hickory Ridge (Campground).”

Traughber and Craven installed the lights in the front and the side of the building for the Christmas event.

“We did a Halloween party here and we decided we want to do the Christmas one here, too,” Craven said.

Craven, Traughber and Niswonger painted the building and fixed up both floors of the Danville Female Academy, which was one of the first female colleges west of the Mississippi River.

“It made me feel good, working on something that’s so old,” Traughber said.

The Female Academy was founded in 1853.  It survived during a raid that happened in Danville on Oct. 14, 1864. Confederate guerillas such as “Bloody” Bill Anderson led the raid that killed several residents, including 12-year-old Ira Chinn. 

Students from the Academy found a way to prevent the building from being torched. One of them hung a petticoat on the staff over the front door as a sign of truce. Some of the students claimed to be Southern girls and requested that the building should not be destroyed. 

The second floor included a congregation area and sleeping quarters. Niswonger, Traughber and Craven cleaned out that second floor. There is a wall there that has writing from 1915, 1917 and 1921.

The building, which was a Methodist Church until the 1950s, has a pair of Civil War markers on the right.