My recent ventures took me into Washington State dryland wheat as well as scrub steppe rangeland. The wheat land is underlain by Palouse soils and the rangeland is primarily within the ice age flood channels. There is also a dune field in this area. This is a pretty sparsely populated area and has less people today than it once did. Mechanization of farms and wheat transport, better roads and better cars has reduced the number of folks in this region of the state.
One survivor of the population decline could be seen on the horizon as I drove the Kahlotus-Pasco Road across the snowy wheat fields.
This cluster of buildings are the bulk of Star School District. The district serves 13 students (number from the latest State audit dated September 2016). The district has two teachers that teach in the single elementary school in the district.
About 10 miles to the southwest is another older school building that is no longer in use as a school.
This old school building was being used as a storage shed on a farm, but got a bit of a makeover in 1998 for the movie The Basket (trailer on youtube shows some school scenes). The movie setting was in Waterville, but the school scenes were shot at this old schoolhouse.
1 comment:
Nice tip on the movie.
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