The original Laurel High School, which was built in 1910, sold for $150,300 in an online auction with the winning bid coming in just after noon on Thursday.
Watch Laurel High School sale here:
Now the big question is what happens with this old school campus at 410 Colorado Ave.
The seconds ticked down with a final bidder for the combined 60,000 square feet of the school and gym, which have been unused for years.
“I got on just to see at the last minute to see that it was purchased,” said Vanessa Lawrence-Long, Laurel school trustee.
Lawrence-Long says she's happy with the sale price because now the district does not have to worry about maintaining the old school.
“In my opinion, it needed to go,” Lawrence-Long said. “Why keep something that we're not using? If anything, it's costing us more money to keep it. ”
Superintendent Matt Torix says the school district signed the buy-sell Thursday afternoon with real estate developer Jeff Riggs from Butte, who turned a Butte church built in 1907 into an Airbnb in 2022.
The hope is Riggs will do something similar with the school building, whose halls have been filled with thousands of Laurel's children.
“I hope they can come up with some way to use it for the community,” said neighbor Marjie Resser.
Resser lives within a block of the school and says it has memories for her family.
“My dad went to high school over there,” Resser said. “And a couple of my siblings went to junior high school over there. ”
Others in the neighborhood also like the historical building.
“It's a nice brick building,” said Caudill Ryan. “We looked at it. It's a pretty cool place, so I hope they keep it up and do something nice with it."
"In a residential area, I'm sure they don't want, you know, like some big business or something going on,” said another neighbor.
“Whatever they do with it, I hope it helps the community, helps build the community.” Lawrence-Long said.
Another prominent building in the area, the downtown Billings Gazette building, was on the auction block July 6,7, & 8, but MTN was not able to confirm if it was sold.
