These images were provided by Margaret Bonney and Alba Arndt. Chester and Alba Arndt bought the Bailey family house in 1950 from the infamous Vera Romaine. Alba still lives in the house, built by William and Carrie Bailey in 1898, located two blocks from where the school stood. The construction of the school started in 1886 and it opened in 1887. The image on the left is from a postcard printed in October, 1907. The thumbnails are links, and some published history can be found here.

The school was known as the Hailey High School, but the elementary children attended school in classrooms in the basement, so it was more than a high school. Alba Arndt taught in the elementary school from 1955-1975.

All the Bailey children attended school in this building, Tom, Theresa (Tracy), Vic and Caroline (Carolyn). It is also highly likely that Sarah (Sadie) Redsull, grand daughter of T. T. Redsull and Amelia Spence Redsull, attended school here as well. One fact is not in question: the grandson of Theresa Bailey Cline, Daniel Hoven Cline, attended first grade in 1950-51 in the elementary classrooms of this building.

The large double door front entry opened into a large alcove with hardwood floor and a rail around the wall with pegs for hanging coats. Skis were stacked along the wall and boots left below the coats. Most children used skis or snowshoes to get to school in the winter months. Snowfalls and accumulations were substantial, making it sometimes impossible for man or horse to travel.

Across from the main entry, an elegant wooden staircase with heavy banister led up two flights to the classrooms on the next floor. Behind that staircase, a flight of stairs led down to the elementary classrooms in the basement.

At some point in the school's history, a fire escape was added to one side of the building. This was no ordinary fire escape. It was a slide enclosed in a metal tube, which was entered from hatchways in the side of the building on the upper levels. That slide was an ongoing invitation to battle between the children who wanted to sneak a trip down it and the teachers who wanted to keep them off of it, except during fire drills. In the spring of 1951, teachers made "slide time" available during the noon recess. It is anybody's guess how many generations of teachers and students experienced the slide as a bone of contention.

It is unfortunate that the foresight of the Idaho pioneers who built the school didn't come into play to preserve it as an historic place nearly a century later.

The story of the school's creation is on the next page.