1888: The Matthews family donates the land. Locals, including several Civil War veterans, build the school and outhouses.
1921: Some students sent to Cold Spring Academy
1922: The ospreys that historically nest on top of the school, featured at one time in The Smithsonian magazine, disappear.
1923: Local schools begin consolidating with some classes moving to larger schools.
1926: Fishing Creek students are bused to the Consolidated School.
1928: The Leckey family buys the school from a Wildwood real estate agent who purchased it at public auction. The Pennsylvania family uses it as a vacation home.
1980: Building placed on National Register of Historic Places and on state register.
1994: Township Council votes 3-2 not to issue a $200,000 bond to save the school. The township also turns down grants.
1997: Lower Township Historical Society begins raising funds to save the school.
1998: Township Council asks Cape May County to purchase it with open space funds.
2000: County Open Space Review Board considers purchase and township's historical society comes up with proposal to restore and manage it.
2002: State Green Acres Program purchases school and leases it to township for 20 years at $1 a year.
2009: The nonprofit group Friends of the Fishing Creek School forms to restore and find new uses.
2011: Lower Township Elementary announces it will use the school for educational programs.
2013: State grant received to make the school ADA compliant and restore interior, final steps to reopen.
