Paradise Center open house draws visitors

Nearly 80 people showed up at the open house of the Paradise Center, formerly Paradise Elementary School, Saturday to see the finished Visitor's Center. The guest log displayed signatures from as far away as North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, and Washington.

The Visitor's Center is one of three facets of the Paradise Center, along with the Arts Center and Community Center. It's been just over two years since the Paradise Elementary School Preservation Committee started on its vision to transform the old schoolhouse into a fully operational Paradise Center and last weekend, it got one step closer.

"It's still a work in progress, but we've come a long way," said Judy Stamm, president of the preservation committee. The Visitor's Center is one of eight finished rooms in the 108-year-old schoolhouse, which closed its doors due to a lack of student population in 2013. The main feature in the Visitor's Center is a 9X9-foot custom-designed exhibit of Glacial Lake Missoula built by Helena resident Geoffrey Wyatt. His electronic display has lights that pinpoint specific areas of the flood plain, said Stamm, one of several volunteers who showed visitors around Paradise Center Saturday. The center was able to get the exhibit with a $50,000 grant from the Montana Office of Tourism. The Visitor's Center also shows a variety of local events and places to go in Sanders County and Northwest Montana. A timeline of local, national and international events from 1650-2018 showing major themes, such as the history of Native American people, the influence of the railroad on the area, and the development of Paradise, can be found just outside the Visitor's Center.

Some of the rooms still require work and are at different stages of completion, said Karen Thorson, a committee member and a major force behind the school's conversion. The buildings and property are owned by Sanders County and leases it to the preservation committee, which has been able to get the work done via grants, private donations and a score of volunteer work. More than $200,000 has been put into the main schoolhouse and the old gymnasium, which is now an auditorium used for plays, musical performances and other events, such as the Artists in Paradise show last weekend.

Thorson said the biggest challenge has been getting the schoolhouse and auditorium handicap accessible. A 42-foot concrete ramp was installed in the schoolhouse last week. Stamm said they hope someday to get the entire building Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ompliant, which would require an elevator and be very costly, she said. Making the restrooms in the auditorium ADA accessible took 13 month and was all done with volunteer labor.

Another of the finished rooms houses "Frontier Town," which is comprised of 14 handmade structures – including two outhouses – by Dixon resident Harvey Gould, who donated the buildings to the center. It took the 91-year-old Gould 15 months to construct the village. "He did it for the love of building and for the love of western history," said Paradise resident Karval Pickering. Pickering, a preservation committee member, is no stranger to the schoolhouse. She attended school there at 5 years old in 1944, was the school clerk for 30 years, and served on the school board for six years. Pickering has been a strong supporter of preserving the old schoolhouse.

One of the converted classrooms is the "Gallery," which features a selection of paintings and photographs from local artists, was finished last week. Also completed was an artist workroom and an artist studio, which has a dozen new wooden easels that were built and donated by Rudi Boukal of Thompson Falls. Recently, the committee received a $5,000 grant for three potter's wheels that will be used for ceramic classes.

Boukal also created two 20-plus foot long cabinets for a large railroad exhibit in the historic classroom. Half of the room is set up to show a typical classroom of the old school. The other half is a railroad exhibit that will depict Paradise railroad life in the 1940s. Benita Hanson, a preservation committee member, is the chief coordinator of the railroad display. She organized a workshop on laying down the HO scale train track and will be arranging for a workshop on creating landscape and the buildings for the display. The committee hopes to have the room completed sometime this year. Plans are to also have a local artifacts room, which will include Native American, railroad and Paradise objects, many which have already been donated to the center.

The center now has audience and stage risers for the auditorium, along with a new lighting system for when the center hosts plays or musical performances.

"The open house went well," said Thorson. "All those people visiting us makes all of the work worthwhile."