Old Missoula

Formal Education of Children Started in 1869 in Missoula

Formal education of the children of Missoula’s 25 families began in July of 1869 when Mrs. W. H. H. Dickinson opened classes in a one-story structure at the intersection of Front street and Higgins avenue.

Mrs. Dickinson, then Emma Slack, came west from Baltimore, Md., in 1869 to visit a brother, listed variously as John A. Jasper and John Slack, who had homesteaded north of Corvallis.

She went by train to Sioux City, Iowa, and by river boat to Fort Benton. Her brother met her there and brought her to Missoula by mule team and wagon. Hearing that a teacher was needed in Corvallis, she decided to stop in Missoula to get a teacher’s certificate.

Took Better Offer

She obtained the certificate and an offer of $100 per month to teach Missoula’s children. The Bitter Root position offered only $85 so she opened the schoolhouse here in the summer of 1869.

On the school board were Capt. Christopher P. Higgins, William McWhirk and William G. Edwards.

Miss Slack’s first pupils were Frank and John Higgins, John Buckhouse, Charles and Eva McWhirk, Hubert and Eva Dana, Jefferson and Spencer Pelkey, Marie and Linda Miller, Mary Winslett, Lucinda Harris and Thomas Meinsinger. George White and Charles Gregory joined the class later.

Miss Slack Recalled

In 1870 Lizzy Countryman, later Mrs. Frank Woody, was employed to teach in Missoula. Her mother died, she gave up the school and Miss Slack was again called to teach. The school that year was on the corner now occupied by Montgomery Ward & Co.

Miss Slack was hired to teach again in 1871, this time in the first building constructed for the express purpose of a school. This building still stands at 407 E. Main St., added to and converted into a physician’s office in 1948.

The school of 1870 was being torn down by Frank L. Worden for erection of a new store building on that corner.

Miss Slack was married in 1872 while employed as teacher at the school on East Main street. The man she married, W. H. H. Dickinson, was a teacher at a school on Gird’s Creek near the present site of Hamilton.

The marriage was the first performed in Missoula by a protestant minister. After her marriage, Mrs. Dickinson continued to teach, finally retiring after many years of service. She was the mother of W. O. Dickinson and Mrs. Robert Harkness of this city and Mrs. Philo Haynes of Great Falls.

Mrs. Dickinson, 88, died of pneumonia on New Year’s Day of 1927. In telling of her journey to Montana in 1869, she said a war party of Crow Indians boarded the boat near Bismarck, Dakota Territory, and demanded a ride. The captain was afraid to refuse. “Yes, I was frightened at first, but it was evident they meant no harm,” she said.

First Schools Plain

The first schoolhouses in the city were plain. One schoolhouse had been used for legal work while the first courthouse was under construction and was re-equipped for use as a school by adding a table, a few chairs and later a blackboard. It was said that Indians passing by would stop at the windows and watch the students and their teacher.

A description of the two-room schoolhouse here in 1879 told of a dunce stool on one corner and a big “box” stove used for heat. Drinking water was kept in a tin bucket in a corner of the room. The bigger boys in the class, including Arthur and Maurice Higgins, sons of one of Missoula’s founders, Christopher P. Higgins, carried in coal and wood for the stove.

Ryman Early Teacher

J. H. T. Ryman, one of the founders of the Western Montana National Bank, was a teacher in the upper grades in 1879. Mrs. Amos Burch, previously Rose Knapp, taught in lower grades.

It is recalled that some of the pupils in the early schools came to class by horseback from as far away as Hell Gate and Frenchtown. Classes were conducted only during the three summer months in those first years of formal education.

The one-story red brick building built in 1871 was used as a school until 1882 or 1883 when the first Central School was built across the street. A coat of stucco was applied to the outside walls years later and the building was used as a residence for many years before it was converted into the present use.