Intermountain Institute

The Intermountain Institute was established in the fall of 1899 to provide those children who lived too far in the country to attend high school, an opportunity to obtain an equivalent education. The school’s motto was “An education and trade for every boy and girl who is willing to work for them;” all students, in addition to attending classes, worked five hours a day to pay for a part of their tuition, room, and board. Originally called the Idaho Industrial Institute, its name was changed to the Intermountain Institute in 1915 to avoid any confusion between it and the state’s industrial reform school in St. Anthony.

Reverend Edward A. Paddock was the school’s guiding light, coming to Weiser in 1894 and organizing the Congregational Church. Later he started the Weiser Academy, which was located on the site of the present golf course. However, in 1899 he broke with the Academy to form the Institute because the Academy’s faculty and trustees refused to start a program for vocational training. Reverend Paddock believed schools should educate “the hand and heart as well as the head,” and the Institute’s students not only followed the usual college preparatory curriculum, but also were required to take either manual training or domestic science courses. Other student obligations included a mandatory nondenominational Bible class and an hour of exercise each day either in the gymnasium, on the tennis courts, or by hiking.

The school educated over two thousand students during its thirty-four year existence, drawing pupils from at least eight states and one foreign country. The Institute usually had a waiting list which equaled its total annual enrollment of approximately one hundred, and the students stayed anywhere from one to five years.  It was the biggest private enterprise in the Weiser area, and by 1914 claimed to have the largest payroll in Washington County with its expenditures exceeding two thousand dollars a month.

The depression eventually forced its closing in 1933. In 1939 the property was deeded to the public schools to be used as a vocational training school under the National Youth Administration. This federal program remained in operation until 1943, and then the city, in conjunction with the state, maintained the school as a vocational project. After World War II the Institute attempted to recover its property without success, and the buildings were used to house the high school.

In 1967, when the high school moved into its present structure, the Institute was vacated, with the exception of Slocum Hall, which until recently contained a heavy equipment school.

From SlocumHall.org