Althea School

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the voice carrying it down the road. Now settle in, because this is one of those stories where a community keeps refusing to quit, even when everything seems to be working against it. We're talking about a piece of Bell County history that stretches from the earliest days of settlement all the way to 1948, and it takes just about every turn you can imagine along the way.

Thompson F. Fowler and his family were among the earliest permanent settlers of this area. A rural community built up around the family-owned cotton gin, and that community became known as Fowler's Gin.

Not a bad legacy, having a whole place named after your operation. A community school was established about 1894, and just three years later, in 1897, it was consolidated with a nearby school called the Alligator School. That consolidation formed the Fowler Common County Line School District No. 111.

Now, in 1900, the community was granted a United States Post Office, and that post office came in under the name Althea. The post office closed four years later. But that name, Althea, it stuck around.

In 1908, the school was re-named Althea School. Then, in 1910, a brand new schoolhouse was built. And in 1916, it was destroyed by fire.

Just like that. Six years from new to gone. The community pressed on.

Althea was consolidated with other area schools in 1917 to form the New Hope School District. You might think that's where the story ends. But in 1926, Althea withdrew from that consolidation and came back as an independent school, operating on its own terms.

It remained independent until its final closing in 1942. The building itself was sold in 1945, and the school was officially annexed to the Bartlett School System in 1948. The marker puts it plainly, and it's worth saying plainly: although sporadic in its periods of operation, Althea School provided educational opportunities to generations of rural schoolchildren.

A post office that came and went. A schoolhouse lost to fire. Consolidations joined and then walked back.

And through all of it, that name, Althea, outlasted every single thing that tried to erase it.

What the marker says

Thompson F. Fowler and his family were among the earliest permanent settlers of this area. A rural community which built up around the family-owned cotton gin became known as Fowler's Gin. A community school, established about 1894, was consolidated with the nearby Alligator School in 1897 to form Fowler Common County Line School District No. 111. In 1900, the community was granted a United States Post Office under the name Althea. Although the post office closed four years later, the school was re-named Althea School in 1908. A new schoolhouse built in 1910 was destroyed by fire in 1916. Althea was consolidated with other area schools in 1917 to form the New Hope School District. Althea withdrew from the consolidation in 1926, however, and remained an independent school until its final closing in 1942. The Althea School building was sold in 1945, and the school was officially annexed to the Bartlett School System in 1948. Although sporadic in its periods of operation, Althea School provided educational opportunities to generations of rural schoolchildren. (1991)