Settlement School – Priest River Community Foundation

The earliest records of the Settlement School go back to October 15^th, 1892. Records from Kootenai County refer to the school as the “Italian” school at Priest River. It was also known as “Little Italy, District #25” until Bonner County separated from Kootenai County in 1907. At this time the school became Bonner County #10 and was recorded as the “Italian Settlement”.

The current building was actually the 3^rd school building on the site. The first school was built in 1892 and had 31 students by 1896. The original building was a traditional one room school house. With rapid growth at the school, a larger, two-story schoolhouse was built at the location of the current building. A “teacherage” was also built on site to house the two school teachers.

During the 1921-1922 school year, the two-story school house burned down. The first four grades were sent home for the year and the higher grades moved to the old, one room school house in the back to finish the school year.

In August 1922, District #9 called for bids for a new school for the Italian Settlement. Peter J Young, a local contractor, started work on the building by early September 1922 and completed the building in January 1923 for a grand total of $8,000. Henry Mountjoy of Sandpoint designed the building. The building is similar in design to the Cabinet, Morton, Blanchard, Sagle and Laclede school houses.

The Settlement School was closed in 1939 when the district consolidated with Priest River District #13, and the Settlement children were bused to Priest River. The building continued to be used as a community center for many years. Eventually, the building was boarded up and left unused until the Knights of Columbus began a major restoration project in 1997. The building was used as late as 1965 for events.

The building was later placed on the National Register of Historic Places as building #99000418 in 1999.

Since the 1997 restoration, the building continues to be used for weddings, anniversary parties, class reunions, family get togethers and the Knights of Columbus picnic.