Each school
had a name, often from the family donating the school property or important in other
respects—Finkenbine, Allen, Crumbaugh, Wenger, Redinbo, Fridley, Dilbone, Weiskittel.
Other schools took their names from local towns or communities—Rhine, Beehive,
Basinburg, Oran, Bunker Hill, Rumley. But,
perhaps the most endearing are those colorful names from local features like Snake Valley,
Muchinippi, and the "Bigs"—Big Woods and Big Run. And, there were the
"Trees"— Shady Nook, Poplar Knob, Maple Grove, and Walnut Grove.
Though many are no longer in use, the
one-room schoolhouses in Shelby County can still inspire us to wonder and learn about an
educational system long past. Not of our area, but modern-day remnants of rural, turn of
the century Montana, the one-roomer is described by author Jonathan Rabin with the
feeling, if not the fact, of the fading Shelby County institution:
"Built to code, with 14-foot ceilings and tall sash-windows, the schoolhouses are
as formal and austere as Saxon churches. Like churches, they are self-conscious landmarks.
Sited on hilltops, so that the kids could find their way from farm to school in all
weather, they each subordinate their own parochial landscape, and convert ten sections or
so of lumpy grassland and shale outcroppings into a distinct ambit. Bleached now to the
same ash-grey, short of doors, windows, roof-tiles, they exude a wan authority, like
toothless, deaf old teachers unable to give up the habit of instruction." (Bad Land,
An American Romance, by Jonathan Raban, Pantheon, 1996.)
LOG SCHOOLS BEFORE BRICK. The first Shelby County school was built in 1816,
long before Montana settlement and schooling was considered. It was located about 1 mile
south of Hardin in Turtle Creek Township, according to Bevans and Adams. The second was a
log cabin school built about 1818 in Green Township near the old Pioneer Cemetery in
Plattsville.
"The earliest
schools were log cabins," according to the Bevans/Adams book. "Built of
round logs with a fireplace in one end and a stick chimney, these schools had either a
dirt or puncheon floor." Puncheon floors consisted of logs cut in half lengthwise
with flat sides up. A window could be made by cutting out a part of a log and were usually
one ‘light’ or pane. Glass was too expensive, so greased paper was placed over
the opening instead. Seats were made by splitting a small log in half lengthwise, dressing
the flat side smooth and then putting legs or pins in the other side to elevate the seat
to the desired height."
"Brick schools were usually rectangular in shape, with
three or four windows on each side and one or two doors in the front end," say Bevans
and Adams. "Schools were built where there were enough children to attend and where
pupils could come from all directions and not have to travel more than one or two miles.
When there were no longer enough children of school age to attend, the school would be
deserted and one built where it was needed. Boys often attended school only during the
winter months when not needed to help with the farming, so might still be in school at age
22." A first-person account of life at the Van Buren Township "Reservoir
School" in the early part of this century stands in sharp contrast to the schooling
of today. It appeared in Book 2 of Bevans/Adams study on local schools and is reproduced
here with their permission.
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