GHS History Club Tracks Down Valley County Past

The students in the Glasgow High School History Club have been busy utilizing modern technology in order to find the past. In partnership with the Montana Preservation Alliance (MPA)’s Big Sky Schoolhouse Survey, these students, along with advisor Amber Llewellyn, have spent hours of research utilizing Google maps and plot records to try and confirm the existence of former schoolhouses in Valley County. From a list of 161 leads provided, the students have been able to confirm between 10 and 15 schoolhouses, however they are expecting that number to grow.

“We are now to the point in the project where we need to start calling land owners of where we were able to determine a schoolhouse still exists and see if our research pointed us in the right direction,” said co-History Club founder and member Zach Kompel. “Once we are able to physically locate the schoolhouse, and if it still fits within guidelines, we have to take pictures and get descriptive details such as what it looks like and the state of repair.”

In order for a schoolhouse to be classified as a still-standing schoolhouse for the project, the building must have three walls, a roof and not have been converted into another purpose such as a storage shed or garage. The conversion of the original schoolhouse into another purpose became a roadblock for the students during their research. “After dividing up the list and starting to do our research, we found a lot of the former schoolhouses had been converted. Unfortunately, for the purpose of the project, they can not be counted,” stated Kompel.

“When we start making phone calls, we are expecting to hear the schoolhouse we thought existed have either been relocated, moved miles down from where Google maps and/or plot records show, or have got scrapped,” said Kompel. However, if a schoolhouse is confirmed on the land, and the landowner provides permission, the students will drive out to the location and take pictures, which will be catalogued and added to the comprehensive database of all known historic schoolhouses in Montana. “We are really waiting until some of the snow melts before we make our drive out to physically see and document the former schoolhouses,” said Kompel.

The MPA launched the Big Sky Schoolhouse Survey in 2014 to digitally document and map the state’s rural schoolhouses. Volunteers for the project, Jim Greene and Martha Vogt, enlisted the Glasgow High School History Club to help with this endeavor. “More manpower is needed than just the two of us. It’s such a wonderful project for high school students,” stated Greene. The goal of the survey is to provide the data needed to create, fund and implement preservation strategies in order to save rural history. With future grant funding, the Big Sky Schoolhouse database will be available to search online.

If anyone has a rural schoolhouse on their property that fits the guidelines of the project and is willing for the History Club students to come out and document it, contact Amber Llewellyn at Glasgow High School, 228-2485.