By 1894, with the opening of the Katie and Hope silver mines, Basin had emerged as a boomtown of some 1500 souls, including butchers, blacksmiths, druggists, bankers, barkeeps, greengrocers and more. Every growing town needs a school, so the next year saw the founding of Basin Elementary, which soon took its rightful place as a community hub and point of pride.
But 130 years of education history came crashing down on June 19, when the Basin School Board voted to make the school non-operational. In sci-fi parlance, it’s now a zombie school, with no teacher or students for the coming school year. In Montana, a school needs at least two students and one teacher to operate. Non-operational status, which can last up to three years before full closure, is a political euphemism for being shut down.
The important thing to know is that at Montana’s longest continuously operating school, the bell tower has fallen silent – and may never ring again. But in seeking a way to reopen the school and potentially reinvigorate the town, it’s worth asking: how did we get here?
