A historic photo of the Bates Schoolhouse which is currently a multipurpose facility within the Prairie City school district. Date of photo is unknown. 

A historic structure that once served as a schoolhouse for the children of loggers and millworkers in the vanished lumber company town of Bates has been refurbished and is set to offer years of service to the residents of Prairie City.

The 7,200-square-foot Bates Building will retain its role as a schoolhouse, housing classroom space for around 25 preschool students. A separate part of the refurbished building will serve as a school-based health care center for the Prairie City student body and members of the community.

“I think originally it was brought down in the mid-70s, is what I was told,” said Prairie City Schools Superintendent Casey Hallgarth.

Bates was a company town that grew up around a sawmill built in 1917 near what is now the site of Bates State Park, about a mile west of Austin Junction, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia. The Edward Hines Lumber Co. shut down the Bates mill in 1975, and the buildings of the old company town — which had once been home to around 400 people — were dismantled or, like the schoolhouse, moved to new locations.

Many of the abandoned mill buildings were sold for $1 apiece. Purchasers were responsible for covering the costs of moving the buildings from the shuttered mill to wherever their new homes would ultimately be.

The Bates schoolhouse was shipped to Prairie City in three sections and used until the early 2000s. A drop in enrollment in the Prairie City School District ultimately led to the building’s conversion into a storage facility.

The old schoolhouse fell into disrepair and was plagued with problems such as leaks in the roof, holes in the floor and general water damage.

“Ten, 15 years of that,” Hallgarth said. “When I got there, the school board was trying to figure out what they wanted to do with the building.”

Rather than simply trying to sell or scrap the building to make room for more parking, Hallgarth did some research about its history and decided to put together a cost analysis for rehabbing the structure and present it to the school board. Hallgarth said the rehab was a “gut to the studs” — the original bones of the schoolhouse remain the same, but it’s a completely new build otherwise.

The cost of the project was right around $2.4 million. The district saved three years’ worth of state Student Investment Account funding, received an infrastructure grant and made up the rest of the cost with just over $1 million out of the district’s general fund.

Work started in 2019 with CB Construction as the contractor for the effort.

The completed building will house not only Prairie City’s preschoolers and the health care center but will also be the new home of the superintendent’s office, along with containing break rooms and a conference room.

One of the classrooms in the newly renovated Bates Building will become a day care center starting in mid-summer if everything goes as planned.

“We’re hoping to start after the next fiscal year — so after July 1, we’re hoping to get a day care in the farthest northern classroom,” Hallgarth said.

The most challenging aspect of converting the historic building from a weather-damaged relic into a modern, usable facility was funding.

“1,000% funding,” Hallgarth said. “Everything else we can have control over, but when you put in for a grant and you don’t get it, you don’t have that control — you know what money you have saved, but you need more and how do you get it?”

Deciding how to use the completed building came together after the Prairie City School District did its first five-year strategic plan, which the district completed two years ahead of schedule.

“We had focused on early childhood education and a student-based health center,” Hallgarth said. “This has all been planned out from 2019 on as part of our vision and mission.”

The health center that is housed in the building will serve the needs of both Prairie City students and the general public. Hallgarth said the arrangement makes sense due to the closely intertwined history of the school and the community.

“Prairie City School has always been a hub for the community,” Hallgarth said. “When we did our strategic plan the first time, that was what it was based around. The community supports the school so much — how can we give back a little bit with our support?”

The health care center has already “soft-opened,” according to Hallgarth, with a grand opening coming soon.

“I want to say after spring break is when they’re wanting to do their grand opening,” he said.

For Hallgarth, the most satisfying part of this project is getting to see people who attended class in the Bates Building as children coming in and seeing what it has now become.

“When we’re in there and we have people who used to go to school there up in Bates in that building, and they’re complimenting how wonderful it is, that’s what it’s about,” Hallgarth said. “And the legacy of this is that building is going to be standing for 40 more years.”