In the late 1800s and early 1900s, one-room rural schoolhouses formed in vast numbers across western Montana, alongside the isolated farming, ranching, mining and logging communities. This was the foundation of rural education across America.  

Before Lake County was even created, these schoolhouses were widely spread across the Mission Valley. However, as the job markets changed, roads improved and the push for school consolidation occurred, many of those schools merged into the districts we know today.  

Now, Lake County only has three of those rural schools left: Dayton Elementary, Valley View Elementary and Salmon Prairie Elementary. But one of those pieces of history is coming to an end, as Salmon Prairie “will shutter its doors.”  

“It was a unanimous decision with reluctance,” made by the board of trustees, said Carolyn Hall, the Lake County superintendent of schools.  

Hall explained that this decision was based on a combination of factors. Ultimately, due to a small budget, low attendance, recent changes to school-related laws and already-burdened taxpayers, the board felt it was no longer “fair, sustainable or responsible.”  

Swan Lake-Salmon Prairie School District 73 originally encompassed two small schools, Swan Lake School and Salmon Prairie Elementary. They were 22 miles apart, in the sparsely populated easternmost section of Lake County, between the Swan and Mission Mountain ranges.  

According to volume two of the “Lake County School History,” written by Joyce Decker Wegner and the Lake County School Historians, the first schools in the Swan were actually established from 1914-1919 to serve logging camps; even school was reportedly sometimes held at the camps. 

The current long, skinny Lake County school district, which stretches from Swan Lake to nearby Condon, was originally divided into Flathead County’s Swan Lake School District 32 and Missoula County’s Swan School District 33. With the creation of Lake County in 1923, it was declared Lake County’s Swan Lake-Salmon Prairie School District. 

According to volume two of “Lake County School History,” Swan Lake School was housed in various locations over time, with an early photo documenting its lean-to building in 1914. The school eventually closed around 2000.  

Salmon Prairie Elementary was originally a small log cabin built 100 yards from the Swan River in the early 1900s. Another small log cabin known as the teacherage was added in 1934 and in 1954 the community came together to build a more modern schoolhouse.  

That modern white-sided one-room schoolhouse has continued to serve this rural community as Salmon Prairie Elementary for the last 72 years.  

Keep the school alive  

According to Hall, last year’s attendance at the K-8 school was five students receiving instruction from Holl Hubbard, who has served as the teacher for the past 21 years. That attendance has stayed under 10 for the last 20 years.  

The key components that keep any Montana public school afloat are base state funding, enrollment funding and taxpayer-approved levies.  

According to the Montana Office of Public Instruction, for fiscal year 2026-2027, base state funding for elementary schools is just over $62,000, and the amount given for just one elementary student is nearly $6,700.  

While this funding was coming in, Hall explained that after three years of low enrollment, the district had to ask taxpayers to help make up the budget shortfall as state funding declined. Taxpayers have supported a voted mill levy for the last 20 years.  

However, the tuition bill (House Bill 203), enacted by the 2023 legislature, had a significant impact on the small schools' budget.  

The tuition bill expanded school choice by allowing students to attend public schools outside their home district without parents having to pay tuition. The law changed how tuition was calculated and made the home district pay tuition to the parents' school of choice. Legislators believed the new law would create more taxpayer equity.  

Last year was the first year home districts were billed for out-of-district attendance, as those bills were calculated based on the prior year's attendance. According to previous Leader reporting, Hall predicted then that it could cause those small schoolhouses to close.  

Attendance across districts in Lake County has historically always been fluid, and according to Hall, prior to the passage of HB 203, they all agreed not to charge tuition. Hall told the Leader in 2025 that she didn’t think legislators understood the full ramifications of this bill.  

The tuition bills between Polson and Ronan are essentially just exchanges of similar amounts of funds back and forth, and for smaller districts like St. Ignatius, Charlo, Ronan and Arlee, it’s had more of a round-robin effect, according to previous Leader reporting.  

Ultimately, the bill has created a slew of paperwork, a large administrative burden and hurt these small school budgets. 

The tuition bill Salmon Prairie faced last year was $72,000, an estimated half of the school's general fund, according to previous Leader reporting. This year, Hall reported that the bill, along with special education costs, was over $64,000.  

Hall said Pyramid Mountain Lumber, a large employer in the area, closed last year, minimizing jobs. That job market change, combined with recent changes to property tax and lack of growth, led the board to feel like it wasn’t fair to further burden these taxpayers, just to keep the school afloat.  

“The combination has just brought them to a place where the board did not feel it was fair,” Hall said. 

Board member Mary Hendrickson said it was the hardest decision the board has faced to close the school, as it is a staple of the community. Hall added that everyone in the area is deeply invested in the school, and this closure marks the end of a piece of history.  

Board member Manuel Kesterson explained that he, his siblings and children attended the school, which has served as a community gathering place for many years. 

"The loss of it will be hard," said Kesterson, who has served on the board for nearly two decades. 

Hall said it is “pretty remarkable” that it has stayed in business this long, and that it has done so only because of the strong commitment from families willing to subsidize it for the past two decades.  

There will be ongoing responsibilities related to the closure over the next three years, but the district hopes to close it sooner to lift the financial burden off the taxpayers. Right now, the school is considered in non-operational status and will move to the county superintendent declaring the district abandoned.  

The district will be divided into school districts in Missoula and Flathead counties. Currently, they are proposing that the district be divided into the same separation as the high school district, which is split by Goat Creek. This would allow elementary students to attend school in the district they would attend in high school.  

The nearby high school districts are Bigfork High School at the northern end and Seely Swan High School for the southern portion. However, Swan Valley Elementary is technically only eight miles away from Salmon Prairie, so students would attend there before heading to Seely Swan High School.  

Although no students will walk through the doors for the first time in more than a century this fall, Hall said the school board is still required to pay the bills and has to keep the building “safe and operational” in the possibility that the school could reopen. Those “circumstances are very slim,” Hall said, but it has to be kept that way until everything transpires.