YesterYear: Townsend Schools
 | Author:
Victor Sample
Vic Sample: MT43 News Treasurer |
YesterYear: Townsend Schools
“No community is entitled to much credit until it can take just pride in its schools” – Townsend Star
The first school in Townsend was established in 1883 – the same year Townsend was established. The school was a humble log structure that was later used as a barn. According to the Broadwater Bygones, in all of Montana Territory in 1883, there were only 200 school districts and Townsend was one of them.
The Methodist Church was built in 1884 and was immediately used to house the Townsend school. The Broadwater Bygones mentions that it has been mentioned in various documents that Tierney Hall (the upper floor of the Helping Hands for Kids building) was used for some classes – indicating that the school overflowed the Methodist Church.
In 1886, the Townsend School District sold $3000 worth of school bonds (purchased by J.R. Marks) to build the first Townsend School at the location of the elementary school that was just demolished. That first school was a 2 story frame building housing 2 classrooms. The lower grades (1-4) were on the first floor and grades 5-8 were on the upper floor. This building was in use as a school for over 30 years.
That original school building seemed large enough to handle Townsend’s school needs for a long time; yet, 8 years later the population had grown enough that the school building could not hold all of the students. The Townsend Fire Hall/City Council building was used for the primary students. The upper floor City Council Meeting Hall served as a school room during the day and City Council Meeting room at night!
By 1889, sixteen years after the first students studied in a log building, the Townsend School District had a bond issue for $8000 to build a new 2-story brick school house with 4 classrooms; each classroom serving 2 grades.
W.L. Cronk was a local attorney who had the idea of creating a school for adults who had passed the 8th-grade level. The 1886 frame schoolhouse was moved from its original location to Cedar Street. W.L. Cronk then established the Cronk Training School in the old school house with classes in Normal (teacher’s education), mathematics, bookkeeping and business classes. The school was a private school that charged tuition to cover operating expenses. The Cronk Training School operated in the old schoolhouse for 2 years until 1901 when the school district took over the schoolhouse again to house the new Townsend High School. The State of Montana had just passed a law providing for free county high schools and the Townsend School District Trustees worked hard to establish a high school in Townsend.
In the fall of 1901, the new 4-year high school opened in the school house on Cedar with the first graduating class in 1904. The school competed in basketball but had no gymnasium. The Townsend Auditorium on South Spruce street served as an auditorium for Formal Balls, as a theater and as a basketball gymnasium!
But the population of Townsend kept growing and the schools were not large enough to accommodate the growth. In 1905 a south wing was added to the high school building to accommodate the growing number of high school students and in 1912 the elementary school added a $10,000 addition that doubled the size of the elementary school built in 1899.
By 1917 the old frame building first constructed in 1886 was not large enough to hold the high school and a new brick high school was constructed at the cost of $40,349. This brick high school was in use until 2000 when the current Broadwater High School was built. However, the new high school still lacked a gymnasium.
In 1933, the School District added a new gymnasium to the high school that was considered a gem in the region. Long-time Townsend resident Arnold Woodring, who grew up in the Clyde Park area, told me that the new gym was widely admired throughout the area. The Broadwater County Museum has a copy of the blueprints for adding the gymnasium to the high school building.
The brick elementary school constructed in 1899 and expanded in 1912 accommodated the needs of the Townsend School District for over 50 years; but, by 1950 the school was too small and outdated. Fighting considerable opposition, a bond was passed for $188,000 to build a new elementary school. The old schoolhouse was sold for $1 and demolished. The new Cecelia Hazelton Elementary School opened in 1951 and was in use for 70 years until demolished in 2022 and replaced by the new Townsend Elementary School.
The high school built in 1917 was expanded in 1963 at a cost of $463,000. The new expansion included a regulation basketball gymnasium, science laboratories (biology, chemistry), a lecture hall, a home economics department and a shop.
After 83 years of use the old high school was demolished and the current high school was constructed and opened in 2002. The 1963 high school expansion was retained and is still part of the new high school.
Again the population of the area outgrew the 70-year-old Cecilia Hazelton elementary school. By 2020 it was too small and outdated for today’s technology. By a narrow margin of 3 votes, the residents in the Townsend School District voted to pass an $18,000,000 bond to build a new elementary school.
Of course, the population of Broadwater County has exploded in recent years and the new elementary school was too small to accommodate the growth. Fortunately, the School District trustees had foreseen the possibility and had the funds to add more classroom space to the not-yet-one-year-old school.
All of the information for this article (except the new high school and new elementary school) came from the Broadwater Bygones available at the Broadwater County Museum. To learn more about the Townsend Schools' history or the history of the schools throughout Broadwater County, visit the Broadwater County Museum and talk with curator Linda Huth.
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PhotoCredit: Victor Sample
Image 1 Caption: Townsend Elementary School built in 1899. Photo courtesy of the Broadwater County Museum
