Lower Shell School House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

From the record

“The Lower Shell School House is located in an isolated portion of Big Horn County, Wyoming on a bluff near Shell Creek. The one-room schoolhouse was built in 1903, and was one of the first buildings in the area that did not use log construction.”
Wikipedia article Lower Shell School House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 16 National Register listings published here for Big Horn County · listed in 1985 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. U.S. 14, Greybull, 82426
When was it listed? February 1985
Category. building
Census division. Central Big Horn
National Register reference number. 85000247 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

7 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Lower Shell School House between 1996 and 2019, burning about 2,569 acres in total. 2 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	2
Debris and open burning	2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 August 1996	Natural	under an acre	Bighorn National Forest	CASTLE ROCK
15 August 2003	Natural	2,500 acres	Worland Field Office	COPPER
7 July 2014	Debris and open burning	62 acres	Worland Field Office	RED GULCH
15 July 2006	Equipment and vehicle use	4.6 acres	Worland Field Office	DITCH
10 July 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Worland Field Office	SHELL 4
13 May 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Cody Field Office	31 AND A HALF
25 October 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Worland Field Office	BARREL

Every fire recorded in Big Horn County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 10 workings within 5 miles of Lower Shell School House: 5 unknowns, 2 producers, 2 occurrences, 1 past producer. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Uranium, Bentonite, Clay. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Unknown	Clay	Occurrence
Greybull	Bentonite	Unknown
Greybull Area #1	Bentonite	Producer
L.E.Collingwood Bent.Mine & Mill	Bentonite	Producer
Shell Canal	Bentonite	Unknown
Mudstone Claims	Uranium	Unknown
Mudstone Claims	Uranium	Unknown
Reeves Ranch	Uranium	Occurrence
Reeves Ranch	Uranium	Unknown
Shell Creek Prospect	Uranium	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Big Horn County

Storms near this property

26 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Greybull, the town this property stands in, in 26 storm reports between 1997 and 2015: 9 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind, 4 funnel cloud, 4 flood. The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2009	Hail	Greybull	1 hurt, $75,000	Hailstones of golf ball size were numerous at a residence in Greybull. Some stones reached two inches in diameter.
June 2011	Flood	Greybull	$300,000	Shell Creek and its tributaries caused flooding in and around the community of Shell. The flooding was a result of continued snowmelt in the western Bighorn Mountains as the warmest temperatures of the season were attained. Damage was reported on the Kedesh Guest Ranch and a county road along Trappers Creek.
March 2014	Flood	Greybull	$250,000	Flooding of the Spence Oil Field and other areas north of Greybull occurred along the Big Horn River. Three homes outside the Greybull levee system had minor flooding.
June 2011	Flood	Greybull	$150,000	Flooding occurred on Shell, Horse, and Trapper creeks as snowmelt runoff increased. Lowland near the creeks and at least one guest ranch were impacted by the rising waters. No bridges were damaged by the high waters but several area roads were inundated and damaged.
June 2008	Flash Flood	Greybull	$25,000	A thunderstorm moving east along Dry Creek toward Greybull produced one to two inches of rain in Greybull in less than one hour. The town emergency manager reported a few rain gages in town measured slightly more than two inches of rain in 50 minutes. Pea sized hail of one inch in depth also occurred with the heavy rain. The Greybull storm drainage system was unable to keep up with the deluge of water and hail, flooding many prone areas around town. The heavy rain flooded portions of the Greybull River Road and several basements in town sustained damage.
June 2015	Flood	Greybull	$5,000	Minor flooding of the Greybull River occurred just south of Greybull near State Highway 789. The flooding occurred at the confluence of the Greybull River and the rain-swollen Big Horn River. Heavy rain of the previous week had filled the Big Horn River and the snowmelt run-off in the Greybull River began to back-up near the confluence. A small levee was reported to have collapsed upstream of the confluence causing further problems. Sandbags were deployed to prevent damage. Most of the flooding was confined to low-lying areas and little damage was reported.
August 2009	Hail	Greybull	$2,000	Hail estimated at two inches in diameter dented the hood of a traveling vehicle. Most of the stones were the size of a half dollar coin.
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Greybull	$1,500	Thunderstorm wind gusts downed one large tree which blocked a road near the Greybull library. Also, newspaper stands were blown over in Greybull.
June 2013	Hail	Greybull	-	There were numerous spotter reports of hail in Greybull with the largest stones reaching the size of quarters.
June 2013	Hail	Greybull	-	One inch diameter hail was observed by a trained spotter in Greybull.
May 2010	Funnel Cloud	Greybull	-	The Big Horn county sheriff's office reported that a deputy in Greybull was witnessing a funnel cloud over town.
May 2010	Funnel Cloud	Greybull	-	A funnel cloud was seen by the public moving east. The funnel lasted five minutes.
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Greybull	-	Branches were blown down in estimated 60 mph winds east of Greybull.
August 2009	Hail	Greybull	-	Hail of 2.00 to 2.50 inches was measured on the east side of the Greybull River above Greybull.
June 2007	Hail	Greybull	-	A sheriff's deputy reported quarter sized hail on U.S. Highway 14/16/20 near mile markers 93 and 94.
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Greybull	-	Large tree limbs down
June 2002	Hail	Greybull	-	no account filed
June 2002	Hail	Greybull	-	no account filed
June 2002	Flash Flood	Greybull	-	no account filed
June 2001	Tornado (F1)	Greybull	-	no account filed
June 2001	Hail	Greybull	-	no account filed
June 2001	Funnel Cloud	Greybull	-	no account filed
June 2001	Funnel Cloud	Greybull	-	no account filed
August 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Greybull	-	no account filed
June 1997	Tornado (F0)	Greybull	-	no account filed
June 1997	Tornado (F1)	Greybull	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Big Horn County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

5 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
US Post Office-Greybull Main	6.2 miles	1987
American Legion Hall, Post 32	6.3 miles	2014
Carey Block	6.3 miles	2009
EJE Bridge over Shell Creek	6.6 miles	1985
Shell Community Hall	7.8 miles	2022

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 85000247 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Big Horn County	All 16 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.