A symbol of what used to be
Garey Strand, 84, of Coeur d’Alene, descends the stairs of Pleasantview School as the Cowboy Breakfast fundraiser for the historic site takes place in its lower level Saturday morning. The school opened in 1910 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. DEVIN HEILMAN/Press
DEVIN HEILMAN/Press Rita Klocko, 12, of Post Falls, dishes up homemade biscuits and gravy Saturday morning with the assistance of her sister, Maria, 14, left, and friend Madeline Goggin, 13. The young ladies volunteered to work in the kitchen of Pleasantview School during the Cowboy Breakfast, which serves as a major fundraiser for the Post Falls historic site. The Pleasantview Community Association has several projects in the works to restore the 1910 building and give it new life as a community center.
DEVIN HEILMAN/Press Cowboy Breakfast attendees enjoy all-you-can-eat biscuits, gravy and eggs Saturday morning in the old Pleasantview School in Post Falls. About 125 people generally attend the breakfasts, which take place in the spring and fall. The breakfasts serve as fundraisers for the Pleasantview Community Association, the nonprofit that is working to restore the historic school.
DEVIN HEILMAN Flames in this neat antique Monarch Walltable stove kept pans of water heated Saturday for volunteers who worked the Cowboy Breakfast at Pleasantview School in Post Falls. The school, built in 1910, still maintains original flooring, walls, water heaters and other relics from its heyday.
POST FALLS — The clang of the old school bell and the mouth-watering aroma of fresh biscuits welcomed those who went to Pleasantview School for the Cowboy Breakfast on Saturday morning.
“It’s kind of an interesting story on the bell,” said Pleasantview Community Association member Garey Strand.
He said after the school closed in 1937, the bell disappeared.
“Years later, we found it at Post Falls High School,” said Strand, 84, as he stood at the bottom of the stairway leading to the 1910 historic school.
“They had the bell on a trailer and they used it when they played football games. Whenever a touchdown was made, they rang the bell,” he said. “We asked the school teacher if we could get the bell back, and he says, ‘Sure, but we want to keep the trailer.’ So we got the bell and we put it back up there.”
Strand was only a little boy when Pleasantview ceased to be a school, but he said he met a gentleman who attended a Cowboy Breakfast in previous years who was once a student in the two-room schoolhouse. Strand said he asked the fellow where they tied up their horses once they got to the school.
“It was before the automobile. He says, ‘Horses? If we had a horse, we ate it,’” Strand said. “It was during the Depression days. I grew up during the Depression days, too, and we lived off of venison. Deer meat, illegal deer meat. It was in Wisconsin, but the game warden never said anything. The game warden here was my uncle. He didn’t say anything. He ate the deer meat, too.”
Those were dark days that required strength of character and grit, and preserving the Pleasantview School is one way the Pleasantview Community Association pays tribute to the hardworking students and the parents who somehow made it through meager times and left a school that would survive the ages.
“This is a symbol of what used to be,” said Kathy Darrar, president of the association. “I don’t really mean the architecture of the building, but the thought of the kids walking for miles to come to school and the hardships they had just being in school. They didn’t have electricity, so it was all during daylight hours. For kids to want to have an education during that period of time, that was a huge undertaking on their parents and the kids.”
Darrar said little neighborhood schoolhouses had cropped up in the area of Pleasantview throughout the early years. But in 1909, a school bond was passed for the construction of the building and parents were ready to commit to making a larger school that would house grades one through 12.
She said parents who built the school knew very little about construction, but an architect who examined the brick and stucco building told her they put a lot of thought into it.
“They didn’t want it to just be a building,” she said. “They wanted it to be something. The school meant something to them too. As they’ve moved out of the community and passed away, I think it’s our duty to keep this school alive.”
The Pleasantview Community Association has held its Cowboy Breakfast, or a breakfast fundraiser in some form, for more than 30 years to generate funds to maintain the school, which was rescued from vandalism and disrepair in the 1970s and placed on the National Historic Register in 1985.
Projects that are now in progress include fixing cracks, installing gutters, painting, structural work, repairing windows and fixing the original spring that went to the school.
“It is at least a half a mile away. We found where we think it is up on somebody else’s property. Just in going up there, I’m thinking, ‘Wow. You can’t even see the school from here,’” Darrar said. “Those parents wanted this school, they wanted their kids to have an education. They wanted it bad enough that they went at least a half mile away to get water. And it doesn’t come straight to the school, it meanders around the mountain.”
Darrar said it’s always fun when students take field trips to the school, which is located at 18724 W. Riverview Drive. They enjoy eating in the schoolhouse and imagining how kids their age got through a school day more than 100 years ago.
She said she hopes others interested in preserving the school will continue the work of the present-day association so the building and its stories will be appreciated for years to come.
“Our main goal is to make it more of a community place so you can rent it for get-togethers, retirement parties, those kids of events. Upstairs we’ll have one room set up as a classroom and the other will be like a museum. People donate desks and books and all kinds of stuff,” Darrar said. “It’s a symbol of what used to be, and I just think that it needs to be taken care of.”
Info: www.pleasantviewcommunity.org