POTD: Feeling Old
Feeling Old
American Prairie Reserve, Montana
2021
Given there was no wood stove or other obvious source of heat in the Prairie Union School, it was obviously more of an interpretive recreation of what the school was like rather than an exact restoration. (If not there would have been some very frosty learning going on there in the winter!) That it was restored more to give the general feel of the school than it’s actual state would explain why there were only four desks in the building. Or at least I thought it explained it. It turns out that the school, which operated from 1943 to 1957, only had a total of 13 students total over the 14 years it was in operation. So it is quite possible that it never had more than four students in attendance at any one time.
Why title this image “Feeling Old”? Well, those desks look very familiar to me as I sat at the same or very similar style of desk when I was in grade school. I should note that I didn’t even start kindergarten until the year the Prairie Union School closed down, so I’m not quite that old.