Cherry Spring Schoolhouse

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it on to you. Out here in Gillespie County, the Cherry Spring community had a problem that a lot of early Texas settlements knew all too well. They had children who needed schooling, and they didn't have a schoolhouse to put them in.

So they did what people do when the building hasn't been built yet. They made do. Classes for the children of German immigrants in the Cherry Spring community were held in homes, and that's where things stood for a good while.

But communities have a way of deciding enough is enough, and by 1885, a limestone schoolhouse had been completed. The land itself was donated by H. Bratherich, and when that last stone was set and the place was ready, the community didn't just quietly open the door and shuffle the kids inside.

No. On dedication day, the students formed a parade to the new building. Think about that for a second.

Children, marching together, toward something that had never existed before for them. A place built just for learning, built just for them, on donated ground, out of Texas limestone. The Cherry Spring Schoolhouse went on to serve the nearby residents all the way until 1962, when it was consolidated with Fredericksburg.

That's a long run for a little limestone building. And today, it stands as a landmark of early education in Gillespie County, which is exactly what a building earns when it holds that much of a community's story inside its walls.

What the marker says

School classes for the children of German immigrants in the Cherry Spring community were held in homes until 1885, when this limestone schoolhouse was completed on land donated by H. Bratherich. On dedication day, students formed a parade to the new building. The Cherry Spring Schoolhouse served the nearby residents until 1962, when it was consolidated with Fredericksburg. Today it is a landmark of early education in Gillespie County. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988