View source for Dusting Off the Old Ones (15)

'''15. A Sizable School District'''

If you listened to the radio program recently, you heard some of the early day history of School District No. 1 of Custer County. We told, among other things, about its size in 1884. At that time it was the only organized school district in southeastern Montana and comprised practically that entire portion of the state. The western boundary of the school district was a north and south line running just this side of Pompey's Pillar; the northern line was an east and west line running near the town of Fallon; the eastern line was the Dakota line and the southern line was the Wyoming line--a tract of land 186 miles east and west by 128 miles north and south making an area of approximately 23,808 square miles or 15,237,120 acres. From this, however, would have to be deducted that territory comprising the Indian Reservations. The District included all of the following counties as they now exist; Powder River, Carter, Fallon, Custer, Rosebud and Treasure, and portions of Yellowstone, Musselshell Big Horn, Prairie and Wibaux. Some empire. The trustees at that time were, Benjamin W. Ladd, H. H. Gerrish and Samuel Gordon.