City of Plains takes over old schoolhouse

Plains School and Town of Plains leaders got together to officially transfer a small parcel of land with an old schoolhouse on top of it at the corner of Railroad Street and Clayton Street.

Plains School Superintendent Thom Chisholm signed over about a quarter of an acre to Plains Mayor Greg Eitelberg last week at the courthouse in Thompson Falls. It's the only piece of land the town owns along Railroad Street, although the log schoolhouse on it is owned by the Plains Woman's Club. It was that nonprofit organization that had the 133-year-old one-room schoolhouse moved from its original site near Old Airport Road to its present location in the 1970s. The club has been maintaining it ever since.

"We started this process two years ago and the council all voted unanimous to purchase the property for $7,000," said Eitelberg. The railroad owns the property across the street all the way through town. Other property on the north side of Railroad around the parcel is privately owned.

Chisholm said the property wasn't a burden, but they wanted to be able to provide better public relations with the town and the woman's club. In addition, it wasn't in the school budget to pay for work to get water to the property, which wasn't a problem when the school district owned the Wildhorse School, which hadn't been used since May 2014. The Plains School system had owned the entire block, which also had the Wildhorse Elementary School on it. However, when the school sold the elementary school building to Andrew and Elizabeth Ordelheide for their new dentist office in 2015 that meant there would be no way for Plains Woman's Club to get water to the log schoolhouse property to maintain the plants and grass. In September, the school board voted unanimously to sell the parcel of land to the town.

"It is wonderful news that the parcel of land is now owned by the city. Our club is very happy about this," said Glenda Wolverton, the club president. "The lawn was brown because we haven't had a regular water source since the land was sold last year," she said.

Eitelberg said it will probably only cost the town a couple hundred dollars to divert water to the pie-shaped parcel of land. He said they'll use their own staff to do the labor, which he believes will probably take only a day or two.

The Plains Woman's Club recently had a new roof put on the schoolhouse through private donations, fundraisers, government grants, and more than 300 hours of volunteer carpenter work. The club has been maintaining the building for over 40 years. They open it up for the public two or three times a year. Plains School also periodically takes their students on fieldtrips to the old school. The school had been in use until 1896.

"We couldn't give water away for free, but now that the town owns the property, it'll come under our parks system," said Eitelberg. "This small property will not change the amount we pay for insurance, but adds a lot to the looks of our main street," the mayor added.

"The Woman's Club does an excellent job of maintaining the old school house and the property it's on. They are a real asset to the Town of Plains and we are looking forward to working with them to maintain this historic school building and new Town of Plains Park," said Eitelberg. "The nicer the property looks, the more apt people will stop and use our facilities."