NOTUS -- Students in an art history class have almost completed a mural at Notus Elementary School. And they've uncovered some of the town's secrets in the process.

The high school students say they've found stories of wagon trains, forgotten businesses, death and even a dance hall.

High school teacher Daylene Petersen said the town's renovation of an old building into a new community center offered an opportunity for her class to create a mural illustrating Notus history.

But developing the art required research.

Students read books on Idaho history, visited the Canyon County Historical Museum, combed through old yearbooks and even interviewed old-timers.

But when the research was done, the community center wasn't. The class then got permission to start work at the elementary school.

Lupe Delacruz, a senior, said the school was a natural location for the mural.

"(The school had) a lot of murals before," Delacruz said. "When I was in third grade, there was a fire." Because of smoke damage, many of the old paintings were painted over.

Delacruz said each student artist developed a portion of the mural. She painted the portrait of a woman and her son at the top of the creation.

Petersen said visitors often mistake the woman for Sacajawea, but Delacruz said the mother is actually Marie Dorion, the native-American wife of a scout who worked for the Hudson Bay Fur Company.

During a raid on Parma's Fort Boise, Marie's husband was killed, so she set off with her children for the safety of Portland, Ore.

"She made it to the Blues before her provisions ran out," Petersen said. She killed her horse for food "and tucked her boys into a cave."

Then she set out, snowblind, to seek help.

"Her story was really interesting," Delacruz said, "how she survived, feeding her kids horse."

And Delacruz said her research also turned up mention of a dance hall.

"We never had a picture of it," Delacruz said, "so we guessed what it looked like."

Lucas Graham, a junior, said it was sometimes difficult to determine how buildings should look because of fires and reconstruction over the course of the town's past. He completed a painting of a service station with a domed roof.

He said the building still stands, but the dome is gone.

"I live two houses down from this building," Graham said. "They turned it into a produce shop."

He said he finally found a photo of the original structure in the back of a high school yearbook. But it was black and white, so he had to look for clues such as the stucco finish to determine coloring.

Sophomore Caitlyn Peterson said students have worked on the mural since last year. And she said the hands-on project has made local history more interesting for her.

Graham agreed.

"All these things have happened," Graham said, adding that this mural might serve as a reminder that communities change. Even now, he said, new people are moving to town and building new homes, making history.

Find more at the Idaho Press-Tribune.