Stanley School, circa 1951. Teacher: Mattie Hansen, students left to right: unknown, unknown, Jill Klopfenstein, Nancy Steen, Nancy Fleming, Butch Shaw, unknown, Alan Klopfenstein, Jay Critchfield, David Steen. From the Jill Roberts Collection, Stanley Museum Photo Archive.
The summer season here in Stanley is a short one, and though the days still remain warm and sunny, the summer winding down means that the school year is just around the corner. Classes will soon resume at the small schoolhouse in town, and days of diligent studying will replace leisurely afternoons in the sun.
However, for the few children living in the Stanley area just over 100 years ago, the beginning of the school year looked quite different than it does today. Before the year 1914, there was no schooling at all for the children of Upper or Lower Stanley, except what little was provided by their busy parents. That fall, however, a kind-hearted and determined woman named Mrs. Josephine Thompson decided to address that problem.
Mrs. Thompson, with her husband John (after whom Thompson Peak is named), had moved up to the Basin several years prior to 1914, upon the completion of a previous teaching contract. With no children of their own, they began to befriend local families, and Mrs. Thompson soon realized that there was a need for a more formal method of education for the children of the area.
After receiving approval from the Custer County School Board and the State of Idaho School Board, Mrs. Thompson opened up her home as a boarding school. There at the Thompson ranch, four children came to live through the year, and another young girl would walk—or ski in the winter— for class during the day.
The Thompson Ranch House, where the Stanley area’s first school was held. From the Edna McGown Collection, Stanley Museum Photo Archive.
Mrs. Thompson was a capable teacher, and soon the children made good progress in the early grades of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Daily lessons in these subjects would be interspersed with spelling bees, art lessons, and time for song. After school, the children would help with chores around the ranch and play with one another. In later years, the grown-up students looked back on their schooling days at the Thompson ranch with fond memories.
The five children taught at Mrs. Thompson’s ranch. From the Edna McGown Collection, Stanley Museum Photo Archive.
The following year, 1915, residents of the Stanley Basin petitioned for a school district, and the request was granted. A schoolhouse was built in Lower Stanley, equipped with desks, chalk boards, a stove, a wash-basin, and everything else a one-room schoolhouse needed for the gradually increasing number of students. Mrs. Thompson continued teaching for several more years before eventually stepping down from her role as a teacher.
The small school continued to run smoothly for the next five years, but problems began to arise in the spring of 1921, when funds for repairing and maintaining the school building were requested and denied by the state superintendent. Necessary repairs were neglected, and upon an order from the Custer County School Board, the school was required to find another location to hold classes.
Permission was granted for the school to be moved to Upper Stanley, but legal issues began to arise soon after. For the next three years, an ongoing court battle raged between the residents of Upper and Lower Stanley over where the permanent location of the school would be. The case eventually made its way to the Idaho Supreme Court in 1924, where it was dismissed, and both communities were left without a school and without a school district for the next four years.
In 1928, residents were finally able to organize a petition for another school district, which was granted, and school resumed in the dance hall of the Benner Hotel in Upper Stanley. From that point on, the “School Fight” was resolved, and a growing number of students in the area were able to continue their education. Since that point, several reorganizations of the school district have occurred and the school has changed locations multiple times, but education continued without another such drastic conflict.
Though the school in Stanley today is quite different from Mrs. Thompson’s five student boarding house or the early schoolhouse in Lower Stanley, the children here today no doubt feel—just as the students of the past century felt—the growing anticipation and excitement of a new school year.
Azelie Wood is a historic specialist, working at the Stanley Museum. Though she is a California native, she has already fallen in love with the Sawtooth Mountains, and is excited to explore them this summer. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and reading.