Boldtville Schoolhouse

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Bexar County, there's a little two-room schoolhouse with a story as sturdy as the building itself. It starts with a man named Albert F.

Boldt. In 1919, he gave the land to Bexar County. Just gave it.

And that same year, a local resident by the name of Fritz Gembler got to work and built the thing. Two rooms. That's it.

Two rooms to hold all the hope a rural family could pour into their children's education. Now, Fritz Gembler didn't overcomplicate it. He built it straight and solid, with a pedimented porch out front and, sitting right up top, a cupola.

You know a cupola when you see one, that little crown perched on the roof like the building itself is proud of what goes on inside. And something was going on inside, for a long time. From 1919 all the way until 1960, those two rooms served the children of nearby rural families.

Generation after generation, walkin' through that pedimented porch, learning whatever a two-room schoolhouse in early twentieth-century Texas had to teach. That's not a footnote in history. That's the whole story of a community deciding its children were worth something.

The Boldtville Schoolhouse is still standing as an example of exactly what it was built to be, a typical early Texas schoolhouse, and typical never looked so lasting.

What the marker says

Land for this schoolhouse was given to Bexar County in 1919 by Albert F. Boldt. During that year this two-room building was constructed by local resident Fritz Gembler. From 1919 until 1960 it served as an educational facility for the children of nearby rural families. An example of a typical early 20th-century, two-room Texas schoolhouse, the structure features a pedimented porch with a cupola. (1984)