blackfoot-valley

early twentieth-century origin. Its setting is perfect: at the edge of a grass- and-sagebrush open area with a thick stand of tall old-growth ponderosa pines bordered by a few aspens just behind the building. An old Corbin padlock hangs at the door, but not barring one’s way in. You open the door and go in, being careful not to disturb anything inside. The room is 25 feet long and 17 feet wide, with a 10-foot-high ceiling. Three child size classroom desks are the only furninshings left, but these are intact with cast-iron frames and hardwood tops complete with inkwells, as well as storage space for books and school supplies underneath the writing surface. A tattered old classroom map of Montana hangs on the front wall, behind the space where the teacher once stood. The wide blackboard still shows writing in fine hand (“Spencerian,” commented one keen-eyed observer attuned to such matters), perhaps put there on the last day of school before its closing. Many chalk-written letters and some words can still be distinguished, the mes- sages tantalizing but for the most part no longer readable. (Look, but do not touch!) In the center of the room, a cast-iron pot- bellied stove provided heat, proudly proclaiming: Model 825 of Cheinz Stove Co., St. Louis, Mo., in a lettering style popular late in the nine- teenth century. (One can imagine pupils and teacher alike gathering around the stove on Montana’s stingingly cold days.) For light, there are four side windows plus the door window. From the start, the school also would have had electric lighting with lines coming from the Ranch generator. The tum- bledown remains of a “two- holer” outhouse for him and her still (partly) stand behind the school at the edge of the woods. “ Pot-bellied stove, Wales schoolhouse” 160