Reese Creek School
The Reese Creek School, built in 1906, is one of 77 one-room schoolhouses built throughout Gallatin County mainly from the 1890s into the early 1920s to serve the families of one of Montana’s first agricultural regions. In the earliest days, classes met in private homes or in log-cabin structures. After statehood in 1889, four residents of any community could petition state government for financial assistance to pay a teacher’s salary and room and board. Horse-drawn transport dictated that schools be no more than five miles apart, and custom shaped the familiar planed wood, elongated-rectangle building, with a cupola-adorned hipped roof and boasting an entrance that protected pupils from weather. In Gallatin County, this style gradually evolved over the years, with the 1910s seeing influences such as “craftsman” style porches, and a few unusual designs such as the octagonal Malmborg school. But by 1919, the Montana Department of Health and Public Instruction had published a bulletin on school design, which provided blueprints and thus helped standardize schoolhouse design throughout the state.
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