Bell's Hill School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Back in March of 1886, a man named Joseph D. Bell put a drill into the ground in Waco, and what came up was something nobody in that part of town had seen before.

Waco's first artesian well. Now, a well like that has a way of drawing people in, and the area around it started going by a name that fit just right: Bell's Hill. The land had a story, and it was just getting started.

The Waco School District took notice of that growing neighborhood, and in 1889 they opened the Sixth District School at 6th and Franklin streets. That'll do for a while, you say. But by 1904, the school had picked itself up and moved to a new structure over at 15th and Burnett.

Then in 1906, the district decided every school deserved a proper name, and the Sixth District School became Bell's Hill School, tipping its hat, you might say without quite saying it, to that first artesian well and the man who drilled it. Here's where the ground itself gets a vote. In 1923, the school building collapsed.

Not a fire, not a flood. The soil beneath it was unstable, and the building simply gave way. Sometimes the earth reminds you who's really in charge.

But Waco wasn't done. In 1925, a new structure went up, and they built it right at the former location of the Bell Water Company's well. The school came back to where the story began.

Expansions followed in 1954, and again in 1988, the place kept growing to meet the people coming to it. By 1998, Bell's Hill School was serving approximately 600 students. A well gets drilled, a neighborhood takes root, a school rises and falls and rises again, and a hundred-some years later, six hundred young Texans walk through those doors every morning.

That's not just history. That's the ground holding.

What the marker says

In March 1886, Joseph D. Bell drilled Waco's first artesian well, and the area around the well became known as Bell's Hill. The Waco School District opened the Sixth District School at 6th and Franklin streets in 1889; it was moved to a new structure at 15th and Burnett by 1904. All district schools were given official names in 1906, and the Sixth District School became Bell's Hill School. The school building collapsed in 1923 because the soil beneath it was unstable. A new structure was erected at the former location of the Bell Water Company's well in 1925. The facility was expanded in 1954, with further expansions and additions made in 1988. In 1998 the school served approximately 600 students. (1998)