No single building had as profound of an effect on Metaline Falls as its school. The building’s National Register of Historic Places nomination calls it “the finest example of civic architecture in the town.” Beyond the school’s obvious role as providing a place of learning for generations of schoolchildren, the building itself speaks to the changes that Metaline Falls has undergone throughout the years.

The town built the school during an exciting time. In just two years, Lewis Larsen’s realty company had platted the streets, Washington Hotel had opened, the rail line had arrived, and the cement plant had begun operating. A promotional piece in a 1910 edition of Opportunity Magazine predicted that the Metalines would “support its thousands—nay, hundreds of thousands of a teeming population.”

With bright expectations, the community enlisted the services of prominent Spokane architect Kirtland Kelsey Cutter—the creative force behind the Washington Hotel and Lewis Larsen House—to design a school. The two-story brick structure, according to one historian, “seems scaled to a much larger community.” Like many small town schools, it hosted town meetings, community gatherings, and even a church congregation on Sundays. Lillian Bailey was the school’s only teacher when it opened, teaching all eight grades. By the time she retired 36 years later, the school housed twelve grades, but she taught just one. In 1956, Metaline Falls named its new elementary school in Bailey’s honor. The main school building served as the town’s high school through the 1960s, then a junior high through 1974 when it closed for good.

Beginning in the 1970s, mining production fell and in 1990 the cement plant closed. As the community began to redefine itself, it did so around the school. In 1991, rather than demolishing it, the school district sold the building to the North County Theatre Group who renamed it the Cutter Theatre. A force of volunteers restored it to become the centerpiece of the town’s revival as a regional arts destination featuring a theatre, library, and history exhibits.

Credits and Sources:

Bamonte, Tony, and Susan Schaeffer Bamonte. History of Pend Oreille County. Spokane: Tornado Creek Publications, 1996.

Garfield, Leonard, and Van Whysong, “Metaline Falls School.” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, May 1988.

Photographs courtesy of the Pend Oreille County Library District and Historical Research Associates, Inc.