Crossing guard Florence McDermott understands why Jefferson Elementary School is closing for good.

For the last 14 years, she has witnessed the declining student enrollment firsthand.

"Fourteen years ago, the kids would be crossing this way and that," she said, pointing to the intersection of East Fifth and Jefferson streets. "When I started, there were 22 crossings, but each year there's less and less. If I cross five now, it's a lot."

Still, it was a sad moment Friday when she helped the last Jefferson student ever to cross Fifth Street - the same dangerous intersection where McDermott was hit by a car three years ago helping children walk home.

She ended up in the hospital for three weeks, but the children were safe.

The intersection of Fifth and Jefferson is atop a steep incline and has poor visibility.

Jefferson is one of two schools that will close this summer as part of the Natrona County School District's five-year facilities plan. Declining enrollment led the district to evaluate the school buildings and close some of them when the costs to repair and maintain the buildings were just too much.

"I feel sad that it's closing, it has so much history," McDermott said, adding that she knows some fellow residents of the Garden Square retirement home who attended the school back in its heyday.

Jefferson School is one of the oldest elementary schools in Casper. While the physical building has been renovated and replaced over the years, the school was first constructed on the same location in 1918. It was originally called East Casper School.

At first, the building was a one-story stucco structure with nine teachers, according to the "History of Natrona County Schools."

The student population soon swelled, so in 1922 a second unit was added.

In 1957, a multipurpose room was built - the only part of the original structure that still exists today.

During the early 1970s, the student population declined and the school was selected to be eliminated, but parents convinced the school board to keep the school. Several years later, the aging building was replaced with a new structure.

Jefferson was not as lucky this time around.

But the building is not slated to be demolished. Instead, it will house various offices and academic programs for the district.

During the last afternoon, Jefferson staff wore T-shirts proclaiming, "I survived the closing of Jefferson School." The logo resembled that of the TV show "Survivor."

And Tracie Montoya, who attended Jefferson herself over 20 years ago, walked her daughter, Sherea Seymore, out the Jefferson doors for the last time.

Montoya said the small size of the school - ironically, the reason for its closure - is what led her to enroll her own two children in Jefferson.

Seymore, a fifth-grader, said she was also sad, since she had hoped to graduate from the school in a year. Instead, she will attend North Casper for sixth grade.

"I'm sad because it has so much history, and I wanted both my children to graduate from Jefferson," said Montoya.