The Smith Creek School replica, now located on the Swan Valley Museum grounds, was one of the tours offered at the Celebrate and Support the History and Heritage of the Swan Valley hosted by the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society Aug. 6. Attendees listened to stories shared by locals who lived and worked in the valley during the time the Smith Creek School and Swan Valley Tavern were in operation. Local historians also shared about Grandma Whalen's cabin and unsolved mysteries in the area. Stories and photos page 9.
Mary Lou Wilhelm shared of her time growing up while her parents owned and operated the Swan Valley Tavern, now known as Liquid Louie's.
Gene Miller sharing memories of the eight years he attended the Smith Creek School.
Inside the Whalen Homestead Cabin the USVHS has furnished it as true to the historical accounts as possible. There are also photos on the wall and a family tree for visitors to enjoy.
Joost Verboven was one of the musicians that entertained following the presentations.
Val Hopkins telling his famous monkey story. Hopkins was given a monkey in Utah. He gave his father the monkey. The monkey would ride the horses at the Gordon Ranch in the Swan Valley.
SWAN VALLEY - The Upper Swan Valley Historical Society (USVHS) hosted an evening of history, food and entertainment Aug. 6 at the Swan Valley Museum in Condon. Local residents shared stories about three of the buildings onsite at the museum while Steve Lamar shared his Unsolved Mysteries of the Swan presentation. The evening ended with entertainment by local musicians.
Smith Creek School
The Smith Creek School was one of six one-room schools in the Swan Valley and part of the Swan Valley School District created in 1904. It was built in 1918 and used until 1932 for first through eighth grade students. The current building is a replica since the original structure, located north of Kauffman Road, was destroyed in 2011.
Gene Miller shared of his time attending the Smith Flats School, another one room school in the Swan Valley. He spent all of his primary grades first through eighth at the Smith Flats School. He remembers playing games like baseball without balls and bats, Pom, Pom, Pull Away and Anti-I-Over.
Miller said he received an education by listening to the older students recite their lessons. The upper grades helped the lower grades.
"We really enjoyed the opportunity to listen to the others," said Miller. "That was a really important part helping other people learn what they were supposed to be learning."
Miller remembered teacher Mabel Carney who started teaching at the Smith Flats School in 1943.
"She was a real stickler for phonics," said Miller. "You didn't A, B, Cs until you learned [the sounds letters make."
Miller said that if students who moved in were in the older grades and they didn't know how to sound out a word, they would be sent back to first grade.
Carney also "knew how to put on a good show," said Miller. They would put on plays using marionette puppets. They spent hours learning how to use the marionette puppets and do it just right. During one of the shows, one of the students leaned over too far and fell into the scene.
"She just walked around, picked him up and carried him back. Everything was fine again and we went on," said Miller.
Miller said the school was a very important community gathering place for the holidays and at the end of school.
Swan Valley Tavern
The Swan Valley Tavern started as a home that was built in 1945 by Mary Lou Wilhelm's uncle for his bride. She lived with her parents Louis and Marian "Mame" Holmes Krause and two siblings, Shirley and Jerry in the Swan Valley Tavern before it was made into a bar. In 1948 her parents decided that they would open a bar instead of using the community hall every weekend for dancing.
"It was a local gathering place more than anything," said Wilhelm. "They didn't care if you drank or not. It was just to get together and have a good time and visit [before the highway came through in 1955]."
Along with drinks, the bar sold candy bars, pop and snacks that they picked up at Majestics in Missoula, Mont. Wilhelm, her siblings and her cousins Mike and Tom Holmes were the musicians playing accordion, guitar and singing.
"It was a fun thing to do and be around our parents," said Wilhelm.
The tavern was located on a hillside across from what is Liquid Louie's today. Wilhelm said her father put up a rope swing that swung out over the hill for the kids to entertain themselves.
"Well the patrons thought that would be great fun," said Wilhelm. "There ended up to be quite a few broken legs and arms from that."
The Swan River Tavern drinking establishment was moved to another building on the east side of the highway in the 1950s and renamed "Liquid Louie's" The name came from a local packer Bill Reynolds who started calling it Liquid Louie's after Louis. Wilhelm said the name just stuck.
Louis passed away in 1952 and Marian ran it for another 27 years until they sold it. The bar is still in operation on Highway 83.
The log tavern was sold to a former bartender. In 2007, Tony and Laura Quadros donated the building to the USVHS.
Whalen Homestead Cabin
The Whalen Homestead Cabin was built by Bill Deegan for his mother-in-law Mary Ann McKenzie Whalen in either 1918 or 1919. The original cabin was a one-room, 12 foot by 16 foot structure.
Sharon Gressle said that Whalen had a great faith in the intercession of Saint Benedict. When Deegan was building the cabin, Whalen insisted that he place a St. Benedict's medal in each corner of the foundation. She held the belief that having faith in the protective intervention of St. Benedict would prevent the cabin from being destroyed by fire.
Gressle told of one fire in 1919 where Whalen refused to leave because the cabin was protected. Deegan told her that the cabin might survive but she wouldn't. One version of the story says she stood her ground and he picked her up and bodily put her in the wagon.
In 1929 another forest fire went roaring through the area. When the area had cooled enough for access, everything was gone, with one exception. Whalen's cabin and its contents were untouched by the fire. Gressle said the rail fence, nailed to one corner of the cabin, was gone and the nails were melted. In addition to the cabin, a lilac bush near the cabin survived. Great granddaughter, Anne Reinhard, has a heritage lilac from that bush.
In 1955, the cabin was moved to the Jette family property in a meadow on Kraft Creek Road. It became the residence of Ellen (Nell) Deegan, daughter of Whalen and mother of Evelyn Jette.
Roger Donald donated the cabin to USVHS. The descendants of Whalen, through the Deegans, provided the funds for the move and installation of the cabin at the museum site.
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