GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY SEEKS TO LOCATE EVERY RURAL SCHOOL

  

The Washington County Genealogical Society is starting a new project to locate exactly where each of the rural schools in the county were located.  Over the years, over 200 schools were located in Washington County and many of their locations have been lost to time.  The Genealogical Society is asking for the public’s help in locating each of these sites.  They plan to take a GPS location of each site and plot them on a map of the county.

Washington County was the educational center of Texas in its early days. Trask Seminary, McHenry Institute, Union Academy, Rock Island Academy, and Live Oak Seminary are names that most of our county citizens have never heard of.  These were usually boarding schools which brought children in from as far away as Galveston.  As the population grew, there were more schools that were established for the children of the area farmers and citizens of the small communities.

The Common School Districts of Washington County, Texas 1909-1967, originally published in 1988 by the Brenham Louise Giddings Retired Teachers Association, has listed approximately 200 schools that existed at different times in the rural areas of the county.  Those schools in existence in 1909 were consolidated into 43 districts.

The goal of the Washington County Genealogical Society is to locate and get a GPS reading for every school that once existed in Washington County.  We can then plot all of the schools on a map so that there will be a complete record of how our county has contributed to education.

Even though most of you have never heard of those schools mentioned above, there are still many of you who know where Pleasant Hill, Sandtown, Eberhardt, Punchard, Pulawski, Graball, Evans, Hohenwalde, Live Oak Hill, Cedar Hill, Williams, and many, many more were located.

We are asking for your help in locating the schools you attended or others you may know about. Some of you may be able to take us to the site, some may be able to explain it to us on the phone, or some may only be able to show us on a map.  Whatever each individual can provide will be an important clue to help us in our project.

Please call Roy Kelm at (979) 277-9637 or Trish Cooke at (979) 421-8152 or email wcgs@bluebonnetgenealogy.org to help preserve Washington County history.