Napi Elementary School - Browning, MT
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 48° 33.287 W 113° 00.767
12U E 351475 N 5379920
Built beginning in 1939, the Napi Elementary School has since been expanded, now possibly more than twice its original size.
Waymark Code: WM108F9
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 03/20/2019
Views: 0
One of 26 WPA school projects begun in Montana in late 1938, WPA funding for the Napi Elementary School was announced by the Big Timber Pioneer in December of 1938. A large, multi room buff colored brick building, it would initially opened to somewhere around 125 students. $24,447 was allotted for construction of new school buildings at Browning, Babb, Boyes, Bigfork and Utica. This averaged out to less than $5,000 per building. Given that, we'll have to assume that the Browning school was considerably larger than the other four as, even in 1938, $5,000 isn't a huge amount of money.
A little bit Art Deco in appearance, the school isn't especially well embellished, but was given quite a bit of brick corbelling, especially around what seems to have been the original main entrance. That entrance is flanked by large brick pilasters and a brick parapet with angled bricks at its top. Rows of angled bricks serve as decoration, as do rows of corbeled bricks below the cornice, every second row outset slightly, with brick dentils below the bottom row.
Further west are a pair of stepped parapets, one each side of another entrance, this one with a metal sculpture of a Native American engaged in a dance.
