Buell School

Duane's take

Here's the marker's own account, as best as Duane can tell it. Now, the Rio Grande Valley, Hidalgo County, Pharr. A school with a story worth slowing down for.

Back in 1927 and 1928, somebody decided the children of the Pharr-San Juan school district, the Mexican-American children specifically, deserved something better than what had been standing on this site before. So they built something new. Something that would last.

They brought in Harvey Smith, a noted architect out of San Antonio, and Smith gave the building a presence. Walk up to that entry and you'll see it, Classical Revival detailing worked into the roofline scrollwork, and a bas-relief medallion set right above the door. Modest, the marker calls it.

But modest doesn't mean forgettable. The school was named for a woman who had already been pouring herself into this community. Helen W.

Buell, born in 1861, was serving as principal of the Pharr Mexican Ward School from 1924 to 1932, and when they were looking for a name to put on that new building, her name was the one that fit. An educator. A presence.

The kind of person a school gets named after. Helen W. Buell passed in 1949, but the building carrying her name kept standing, kept serving.

And it's standing still, right here in Hidalgo County, with that medallion above the door and all that history pressed into the stone.

What the marker says

Constructed in 1927-28 to serve Mexican-American children in the Pharr-San Juan school district, this school replaced an earlier facility at this site. The new school was named in honor of educator Helen W. Buell (1861-1949), principal of the Pharr Mexican Ward School from 1924 to 1932. Designed by noted San Antonio architect Harvey Smith, the building's entry features modest Classical Revival detailing in its roof line scrollwork and bas-relief medallion over the entry. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1990