Many of the homesteaders in the Swan Valley came in 1916. Wanting their children to get an education in 1918, the homesteaders built three one-room schools: Elk Creek, Rumble Creek and Smith Creek Schools. Later other small schools were built.

Schoolhouses had to be located throughout the Valley because distances were great and the children walked or rode horseback to attend.

The Smith Creek School sat atop a small ridge above the creek, overlooking beaver dams and large wetland meadows on either side. The school stayed open until the larger Smith Flats School was built in 1932 closer to the Swan River and to a county road through the valley. By then children could be driven to school by automobile, though several still walked or rode horseback.

As many as nine 1^st – 8^th grade students attended Smith Creek School in a given year, depending on the population

Martha Jacob Anderson, one of the last students to graduate 8^th grade, would walk two miles to school from her home near the Swan River. She later taught at the newer Smith Flats School.

Finnish homesteaders in the Swan Valley were expert log crafters, and were probably involved in building the Valley’s one-room schools.

The logs in the (12’ X 18’) Smith Creek School were fitted together with a diamond notch (sometimes called a V notch). The notches were shaped entirely by ax. No saw or chisel marks have been found on the original logs. Sapling poles covered the mud and moss chinking stuffed between the logs for insulation. The roof was made of shingles.

The Smith Creek School remained in place on national forest land until it was accidentally destroyed in 2011. The Upper Swan Valley Historical Society and the Flathead National Forest worked together to build a replica and move it to grounds of the Swan Valley Museum.

The Montana Conservation Corps, the Swan Lake Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest, and Swan Valley volunteers cooperated to build the replica in 2014-15. It became an educational project under the direction of Swan Valley resident Gary Lazarowski, a master log home builder.

The schoolhouse replica was reassembled on the Museum property in 2015 and opened with exhibits in 2016.

Credits and Sources:

Anne Dahl and Gene Miller; Upper Swan River Historical Society