Butte Schools

17 Locations | Curated by Story of Butte

What would Butte be without its schools?

From the beginning, the community supported education in hard times and good times. Over the years, nearly 50 unique schools offered elementary education in Butte and outlying communities. Most of Butte's public and parochial primary schools taught students through grade 8 until 1957, when the first Junior High (East) was opened to help ease overcrowding in the grade schools and high school. The second Junior High (West) opened in early 1969, and the majority of the parochial institutions were dissolved due to a ban on public funding for church schools in the same year.

Although many of Butte’s schools no longer exist, the Butte community continues to proudly support both public and parochial schools, and to appreciate the fine buildings that have been repurposed since ending school operations.

The original Emerson School was built on Garrison Ave. in 1901. It consisted of a brick building, heated by coal and wood stoves with windows in all four rooms and an outhouse. The highest enrollment in this little school was 180 “sittings” as it was called back then, which included the teachers.…
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Hillcrest Elementary was constructed in 1969 as the growing population on the “Flats” put demands on the existing schools. The Hillcrest Hornets received their mascot after much debate with the 6th grade class. Unable to come to a conclusion on a mascot one of the “bigger” boys in class opened a…
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Kennedy Elementary School is a treasured institution within the Butte community, as it is the last elementary school left on the “hill.” The community support for this school is overwhelming and its student success is celebrated not only by the families it serves, but also by the “old-timers,” the…
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Margaret Leary Elementary School was constructed in 1973 when the “open-concept” philosophy dominated the educational world. Its original architectural design had large open spaces with moveable dividers. Over the years, Margaret Leary’s interior design evolved to a more traditional school with…
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West Elementary was built in 1969 to serve as a junior high for the students in Uptown Butte. With Butte facing school closures in the mid-1980’s, West was converted to an elementary school in 1986 when Butte adopted the middle school concept by moving 7th and 8th grade students to the now East…
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The seven room Wendell Phillips School was built in 1903. It served as a school for a number of years until it was enlarged and eventually used as the trade school for incorrigible boys. The building became Whittier Elementary School in 1917, when a new trade school, the Cleveland School, was…
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East Middle School was built in 1957 and was originally designed as a junior high serving students in grades 7-9. In the late 1980’s, the junior high concept was transformed into a middle school model that serves students in grades 7 and 8. This model uses a team concept that groups both teachers…
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Butte’s first high school, the Central School, opened in 1884 on East Granite Street, east of Arizona. A trestle was built so students who lived on the east side of Dublin Gulch could cross the gulch to attend school. The first pupil graduated from this school in 1886. The building later became the…
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This building was originally the Webster Garfield Elementary school, built in 1948. It was significant as the first post-war school in Butte and the first school to embody modern planning and design principles. The original Garfield school was condemned and demolished in 1942, with Webster school…
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In the early 1880s the Sisters of Mercy taught in Butte’s Catholic schools. When they departed, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth stepped in. Although they were trained in hospital work, not education, they were determined to assume this new responsibility. They began teaching in 1887 in the…
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The original Blaine School was built in 1890 at 973 N. Main Street in Centerville. It was often referred to as the West Centerville School. The first permanent school in Butte was the Adams, also known as the East Centerville School; it housed students in grades 1-4. Students transferred to Blaine…
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The Hawthorne school is both historically and architecturally significant because it represents the early suburbanization of Butte. Near the turn-of-the century, the Tidewater Investment Company and its founder, Wallace White, began developing the Lake Avoca region south of Butte into an exclusive…
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The Lincoln School was built in 1892 as a three-story brick building occupying the site of the current playground. It was originally called the West Broadway School and renamed the Lincoln in 1896. The building was reconstructed in1958 on the playground of the existing school and opened in 1959.…
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In 1891, Louis Smith, proprietor of the Centennial Brewery, offered to donate a 400-foot lot for a schoolhouse near the Colorado Smelter on Silver Bow Road. He also offered to build the school, allowing the school district to repay in monthly payments, but his offer was rejected. The Boulevard…
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The Park Street Baptist Church is housed in the building that was originally the McKinley School, which closed in 1985. The first McKinley School was built in 1903 and destroyed by fire in 1919. Unlike most other schools destroyed or affected by fire, the McKinley was not immediately replaced due…
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The Butte Head Start Program, a federal program for preschool children from low-income families, is in the former Monroe School. The first building, originally called the South Butte School, was a three-story brick building on 1st Street dating to 1890. The name changed to the Monroe in 1896 and…
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The Sherman school, now privately owned, hosts tumbling, wrestling, and other sports. It is one of the oldest schools in the county and is still in its original form. When many of Butte-Silver-Bow’s older schools burned because of faulty wiring, an unattended boiler, got buried by dirt, or…
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