UNIONVILLE — It’s hard to miss the connection between Montana’s past and its future when you see the historic Unionville Schoolhouse. For nearly three years, volunteers have worked alongside Lewis and Clark County to restore the building, and now that work is entering a new chapter.
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“It is a powerful reminder of what a community can accomplish,” Anna Baker, a Unionville resident and a volunteer, said.
For generations, the Unionville Schoolhouse has been part of this Montana community's story.
Some time around 1872, the building was moved to where it stands today from around a mile and a half away when the community bought what was an old mine office.
“The school is the heartbeat of a settlement,” Unionville resident Chere Jiusto said.
Efforts helped breathe new life into the building while protecting its place in the community.
“There is a lot of heart and soul that has gone into this place,” Baker added.
The restoration was funded by various grants, but most of the work itself came from community members.
Replacing siding and pouring a new foundation that required the school to be removed and placed back on top are just a few of the projects.
“We milled the lumber for the cupola locally out of salvaged timber. Nothing was cut live, and then a group of us built the cupola on the ground, and another neighbor who has a crane came and lifted it up,” Baker said.
Now there’s another milestone. “All the work that was done on the schoolhouse really brought us into a great conversation with the county, and in the end they offered to gift the schoolhouse to the community,” Jiusto said.
Though its function as a school ended in the 1950s, the goal now is to build on the restoration work already completed and keep the Unionville Schoolhouse available as a place where people can connect.
“It has been a gift to the future, a gift to the children of the future, and everyone who comes after us,” Jiusto added.
This isn’t the end of the project. It’s the beginning of a new chapter with the community now officially responsible for carrying its history forward.
