CIRCA 1892 LITHOGRAPH BY WARD BROS., COLUMBUS OHIO - COLLECTION OF KENNON BAIRD

 

Emerson School from the Southwest, ca. 1895

KENNON BAIRD COLLECTION

Emerson School Seen from St. Vincent's Academy, 1890s

COURTESY OF THE JEZICK COLLECTION

New Emerson School ~ 1942 • Renamed for Educator May Butler in 1957

By 1941, Emerson and two other schools, Broadwater and Jefferson, were considered to be inadequate because of age. In June of that year, a petition drive culminated in a school bond election that passed overwhelmingly. The new Emerson and Broadwater schools were completed in 1942 but, likely because of wartime constraints, Jefferson was not completed until 1949.

The new Emerson School (later the May Butler School, now offices of the Helena Public School District) was completed in the summer of 1942, at the corner of South Rodney and Miller Street, about 1/4 mile north of the 1891 school site. The old school was demolished in 1944.

May Butler