When entered in the National Register in 1980 the one room brick schoolhouse had not been cared for in 40 years and was in a state of disrepair, even missing its belfry. Since that time it has been restored, repainted, reroofed, even the belfry has been replaced. As well, the two original entrances into the boys' and girls' cloak rooms have been reinstalled as they were originally, though the centre entrance between the two has been left in place.
As was the case with essentially all rural schools, the Little Red Schoolhouse served the surrounding communities as not only their school, but served as meeting hall, dance hall, picnic center and more. After the school closed in 1920 it continued in use as a meeting hall for a number of years, even being used as a meeting place by new churches prior to construction of a church.
Back in 1967 the Helena Independent Record published an article on the Little Red Schoolhouse at a time when it had become disused as a school but was still in use by the community as a meeting and events hall. The beginning of that article is reproduced below.
Little Red Schoolhouse
How Times Have Changed
By Ann Conger | November 5, 1967
Forlorn in the fall dusk in the Helena Valley stands "The Little Red Schoolhouse," neglected, perhaps, but not forgotten. Oldtimers remember it with affection. Newcomers delight in it and use it for a meeting place.
A Helena landmark, it is a monument to the last century, standing boldly with its privvy at the side, in stark contrast to the thoroughly-modern Rossiter
Elementary School up the road aways.
Rossiter has 290 pupils. The Little Red Schoolhouse accommodated 9 to 20.
"The Little Red Schoolhouse", never formerly named that, but almost always called that, knew a pull-your-ears kind of learning.
Mrs, Munger remembers that a belfry housed a large bell which could be heard for miles on a still day. "It peeled forth at 20 minutes to nine so if we were still quite aways away we knew it was time to hurry," she said.
John Brass, who attended the school from 1895 to 1900 said sometimes he rode horseback
the three and a half miles and stabled his horse in a barn that sheltered four horses. Sometimes he walked and when he was late he ran over the fields.
Read on at the Helena Independent Record