First Sheridan School was established in 1897
Veteran teachers conducted school in farm homes and the first school opened at Martin in 1897 and others started after 1901. The early settlers of Sheridan County were not slow
in putting up schools as the population demanded. Martin school district became number one on the map for being the first to erect a school in 1897. Martin community got the
jump on the rest of them in the county because the Soo Line came in at early as 1893 and filled in their wide-open spaces with families and children. South of the divide, the
country didn’t get started until the railroad was pushed forward to Denhoff in 1901. Homesteaders came rapidly even though train service extended only as far as Bowdon for two more years. Schools were therefore scarce except for a few outposts such as the Bill Oliver School two miles south of McClusky In 1903. Where to find a place to have school – that was the problem of the pioneers. Now we think of bonding or borrowing money as the first means of raising money for building schools but in the earlier days of Sheridan County land was not “proved up” and the homesteaders couldn’t pledge land that wasn’t theirs. In the Mountain City School District the directors, Wm. Wintersteen, Charley Bennett and Ludwig Seibel gave their personal notes for lumber and hauling from Denhoff to build their new school. Other schools were built on warrants but, more often, school was held in makeshift places until bonds could be issued.
