THIS IS RIGHT BESIDE A VERY BUSY HIGHWAY.
THERE IS A PULL-OFF RIGHT BESIDE THE SIGN.
PLEASE USE CAUTION PULLING OFF HIGHWAY AND BACK ON.
No matter where the early arrivals settled, their first community project was to build a school, in the hope that their children would have an easier life. The earliest settlers were mostly Scottish and the name Stormount is thought to have originated in Scotland.
The school district was registered in 1884 with the Northwest Territories Government in Regina. The land for the school was purchased in 1897 for the sum of $21.00, The school was built and opened in April 1899. The first teacher, a Miss Alexander, was hired and the monthly pay was $40. An extra dollar a month was paid for janitorial duties.
The children not only carried their lunch to school but drinking water in a lard pail as the school did not have a well until 1909. The school was kept open, weather permitting, availability of teachers, and tax assessment money available to pay salary and expenses. Assessment in 1901 was 2.5 cents per acre rising to 7 cents per acre in 1920.
Some rural schools were temporarily closed if families with school-aged children moved away and then students had to attend nearby schools. A minimum number of students to qualify for government operating grant was 6. Sometimes pupils walking to school would cut across fields and pastures. Once such incident arose when the cows in the pasture “chased” the kids, with books and school lunch pails being lost in the race for the pasture fence.
Stormount school was closed in 1954 and pupils were bussed to Okotoks.
Information taken from Local History book, Sodbusting to Subdivisions