Pastimes: In search of county’s old schools

Anne Dyni Pastimes

Searching for more early schools in northern Boulder County takes us west, then south of Longmont. At the corner of North 53^rd Street and U.S. Highway 36 stands the former Montgomery schoolhouse.  Now a residence, it was built in 1917 by Finnish stone contractor Ernest Loukenen. Loukenen’s nephews Leonard and Reino rode their family horse two miles to school on days they couldn’t hitch a ride with the milkman.

Quotes from oral history interviews with former students includes Marjorie Brackett (Cinnamon) who remembered a single classroom upstairs with two coat rooms in back, and a second classroom in the basement. Maude Moomaw (Beasley) recalled her teacher, Mr. Cordes, “who had a nasty habit of spitting tobacco on the floor then grinding it in with his heel.”   Parental pressure soon put a stop to that.

Continuing west, the Lyons school at 338 High Street was built in 1881, shortly after the Lyons school district was created.  Like many public buildings in town, it was constructed by stone masons employed at local sandstone quarries. Today, it still serves the public as the Lyons Historical Museum.

The second Burlington schoolhouse was moved in 1909 to the Leroy Rider farm east of Longmont where it was converted it to a barn. It was demolished in 1994 when the farm was sold and subdivided. Anne Dyni collection

On the southern edge of Longmont, at the corner of Highway 287 and Pike Road, stands another historic schoolhouse. Today, the former Burlington school houses the Longmont Buddhist Temple.  When it was built in 1909, however, it served families living near the town site of Burlington.

The first Burlington schoolhouse, circa 1864, was described as a small shanty where teacher Mary Kinney used a dinner bell to call her thirty pupils to class. Students sat on rough benches on either side of a center aisle.  Boys were on one side and girls on the other.  Drinking water was hauled in buckets from nearby Left Hand Creek.

In 1869, a second and more substantial school was built, complete with a huge belfry for the iron bell purchased from a Chicago foundry.   The huge bell was shipped by train from Illinois to Cheyenne, where it was loaded onto a wagon and hauled by ox team to Burlington.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978.  She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history.  She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.