At the onset of the twentieth century, the community of Potomac evolved from a small mining and ranching outpost to an established logging and agricultural town. Population growth in the first decade of the new century triggered a need for improved educational facilities. In July of 1912, the trustees of Potomac School District #11 voted to establish a local high school. Taxpayers voted fifty-six to four in favor of bonding $10,000 to finance its construction, and the Missoula husband-and wife architectural team of John and Josephine Kennedy supplied blueprints for the substantial four-room building. Their design features a central belltower, typical of period schoolhouse architecture, but innovatively incorporates wide eaves, a hipped roof, multiple window groupings, and banded brick façades characteristic of the then-fashionable Craftsman style. By the fall of 1913, the completed and well-equipped building included twenty large desks, newly purchased at four dollars each. Two secondary and three primary teachers managed fifty-two students ranging from grades 1 to 12. Zoology, Latin, German, and bookkeeping were among the courses offered by the accredited high school program. Today, as generations of graduates fondly remember the Potomac School, it continues to serve as an anchor to the community and a doorway to the future for its children.
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