Buchel Community and School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along to you just as it stands. Way out in DeWitt County, people were putting down permanent roots in this part of Texas as early as 1839. That's before most folks had even figured out where the good water was.

Two years later, a school opened near this very site, and then in 1842 a post office followed. A community was taking shape, quiet and steady, the way the best ones do. Now, for a good long while that school went by the name Oak View.

Solid name. Humble name. The kind of name a place earns before anybody famous takes notice.

But somebody did take notice. In 1894, a Cuero merchant and banker by the name of Otto Buchel, born in 1849, gave land right here at this site for a community school. Gave it.

Just like that. And when a brand new schoolhouse went up in 1921, the community decided Oak View had served its purpose, and they named the new building in honor of Buchel, who had passed in 1909 and never got to see it finished. There's something worth sitting with in that.

The Buchel School ran until 1950, when it finally closed its doors. But here's the part that lands a little differently than you might expect. That 1921 schoolhouse, the one carrying his name, did not go quiet.

It stayed standing, stayed useful, kept right on serving the community as a community center. Sometimes a building outlasts its original purpose and finds a second one. Otto Buchel gave a piece of land, and what grew from it lasted longer than anybody had a right to expect.

What the marker says

Permanent settlers arrived in this area of Texas as early as 1839. A post office was established in 1842, two years after the first school opened near this site. In 1894, Cuero merchant and banker Otto Buchel (1849-1909) gave land at this site for a community school. The first schoolhouse constructed here was known as Oak View. When a new building was completed in 1921, it was named in honor of Buchel. Although the Buchel School closed in 1950, the 1921 schoolhouse remained in use as a community center. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986