This year’s grants of the Foundation for Montana History are supporting many worthy projects across the state. One that I have been watching for some time, about 7 years, is the progress made in the restoration and reuse of the historic Baxendale School outside of Helena.
Built in the 1890s, it served as a one-room school in rural Lewis and Clark County until the mid-29th century. Luckily no one tore it down over the following decades. About 15 years ago Preserve Montana (then called the Montana Preservation Alliance) carried out a study of the state’s one room schools and convinced the National Trust for Historic Preservation to list Montana’s rural schools as one of the nation’s most threatened historic resources.
But Preserve Montana wanted to do more than advocate for preservation. I wanted to demonstrate how to give these buildings new lives. In 2019 it acquired the Baxendale School, moved it to the outskirts of Helena, and began to use it as a hands-on training center for the repair of older buildings.
I was able to see the progress up close in the fall of 2025, and came away impressed with the progress and plans for next steps.
The support from the Foundation for Montana History will help complete the exterior restoration. What a productive partnership between the Foundation and Preserve Montana!
Montana's Historic Landscapes 
A fine article and good news about the restoration of an iconic one-room schoolhouse. It’s inspired an idea:
For several years, I was the Montana State Representative for NASA AESP (a NASA education program). This involved visiting any school in the state at no cost to the school upon their request, where I’d present an assembly program, work with teachers and their classes. and conduct education workshops for teachers. I visited many one or two room schools and offered at least two major workshops in what I call ‘Deep Montana’. One of the teachers who attended the Glendive workshop was later profiled in the NYT Education Magazine as a model for true education re-creation – Linda Borntrager of Bloomfield School. The article is here (although they insist on a registration for non-educators to read it): https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/06/education/the-one-room-schoolhouse.html
This is not the only article about the national excellence of small Montana schools. It does capture the remarkable quality of teaching and learning I saw everywhere in the state but especially in small rural schools. As the NYT article indicates those schools are models for other schools.
So here’s the idea: I suggest the restored Baxendale School be not just a museum; but also a center for the study of excellence in education as reflected in Montana schools. The NYT article implies that ‘reform’ of education is not particularly successful but the methods used Bloomfield schools are strikingly successful. Why not find out why? And why not in that small school now located in the state capital?
Cheers,
Donald M. Scott, NASA-AESP retired
https://georgerstewart.wordpress.com/
Brilliant idea.