Bristol School

Duane's take

The marker's the one telling this story, and I'm just the voice carrying it down the road. Now, before Bristol had much of anything, it had a school. Or at least something that wanted to be one.

Way back in 1870, the community put up a multi-purpose building right here: the kind of place that had to be a lot of things to a lot of people, and somewhere in there, it found time to educate the young ones. Seven years later, in 1877, things got a little more official. The Bristol School district was established, which meant the community was serious about this.

Serious enough that they built a proper schoolhouse in 1886. And then, when that wasn't quite enough anymore, they built another in 1913. Youth from throughout the area made their way to Bristol to learn, which tells you something about what this place meant to the countryside around it.

But here's where the story takes a turn. Come 1940, the U.S. Works Progress Administration (the WPA) completed a brand new brick school right here.

Five classrooms. And not just any auditorium, mind you; an impressive auditorium and stage. In Ellis County, Texas, in 1940, that was something to talk about.

And people did show up. In the 1940 to '41 school year, 130 pupils attended, learning under 6 teachers across 9 grades. That's a full house, and a community putting real weight behind its future.

Bristol School kept that up until 1955. Then, two years on, in 1957, its facilities and its grounds were deeded to the Bristol Cemetery Association; the school passing, in a quiet kind of way, into the keeping of the place where the community lays its own to rest. Seems fitting, somehow.

The spot where generations learned their first lessons, now tended by the folks who remember them last.

What the marker says

The community's first school was housed in a multi-purpose building erected here in 1870. The Bristol School district was established in 1877. Youth from throughout the area attended Bristol schoolhouse built in 1886 and 1913. A new brick school containing five classrooms and an impressive auditorium and stage was completed here by the U.S. Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1940. 130 pupils attended the 9-grade, 6-teacher school in 1940-41. The school served the area until 1955. In 1957 its facilities and grounds were deeded to the Bristol Cemetery Association.