The original log Brown Creek School was built in 1920, serving the surrounding families until 1948, when it was replaced by this, larger, wood frame one room schoolhouse. Brown Creek School was one of three which once taught the children of the North Fork Valley. The others were the Sand Creek School and the Kettle River North School, both
torched by arsonists the same night in 1931 and never replaced. Both were further south in the valley. The valley was named for the North Fork of the Kettle River, which today is known as the Granby River, which melds with the Kettle River at Grand Forks.
This school stands mere feet from the south bank of a creek, but not Brown Creek. This creek is Pass Creek, with Brown Creek about 3 km. to the south. The school stands just a few metres east from Brown Creek Road, on Brown Creek East Road, about 5 km. north of the southern end of Brown Creek Road, which begins at the
Hummingbird Bridge, and about 20 km. north up the valley from Highway 3 in the city of Grand Forks.
As can likely be surmised by now, the name for the school comes not from its association with Brown Creek itself, but Brown Creek Road. It remained open as a school, teaching grades one to eight, until school amalgamation forced its closure in 1957, the students thereafter being bused into primary and secondary schools in Grand Forks.
Essentially since its closing the building has served the citizens of the
North Fork as a community hall.
Brown Creek School: 1920 to 1957.
Brown Creek was another of the three schools to serve the students of the North Fork Valley. The school was opened in February 1920. Miss Varco was the teacher at an annual salary of $1020, with 17 students attending. This area has always had a steady school population and so did not experience the closure nor the worry of closure that many other one-room schools did. This typical little log schoolhouse served this farming community for nearly 30 years until 1948 when it was replaced by a "modern" one-room school that is now the community hall for the area.
A story in the Grand Forks Gazette of February 1920, heralded the opening of the new school: "The dance last Friday to celebrate the opening of the new Brown Creek school was a great success, there being 50 couples present and $49 proceeds were realized."