Baxendale School House

By Melody Perry

The school house sits on an empty lot awaiting renovation.

The Montana Preservation Alliance saved another historic building in early January. The Baxendale School House is receiving a new life as a Preservation Training Center.

The school house was built around 1890, according the Alliance’s earliest records. “It operated as a school until the mid-1940s then became a community center,” says Madie Westrom, the Outreach Coordinator for the Alliance. It was located just off Nelson Gulch, which is past Fort Harrison on US 12. Thomas Plank at the Independent Record fills in the gaps: “Before its move..., it was part of an antique mall and also saw time as a yarn shop.”

The building has been moved multiple times and passed through many hands until it was recently donated to the Alliance by, “The Andersen family of the Wassweiler Steakhouse.” An emergency grant from the Montana History Foundation helped cover the cost of $30,000 for the move. The rest of the renovation costs have yet to be decided.

Today the school house sits on a lot donated by the Archie Bray Foundation along Country Club road. The old siding is still white, and the door a bright red. Some simple decorations are still intact, while the bell tower is missing. Restorative renovations will pick back up with the weather, and the alliance is hoping the building will look like it once did, (See left bottom image) while the inside while be outfitted differently than a normal classroom.

Westrom explains why it’s so important to preserve historic Montana buildings: “It gives our communities a greater sense of our common heritage, it gives us a place to reflect upon the past and experience it in a more meaningful way, and each historic building is part of what helps to make Montana unique.”