DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it stands. Now, out on Church Hill Road, sitting right between two farm communities — Hortontown on one side, Neighborsville on the other — there's a little schoolhouse with a longer memory than you might expect. Before that building ever went up, the pastors of St.
Martin's Evangelical Lutheran Church were already holding day school right there in the church itself. For years, that's how it went. Then 1870 rolls around, and they built a proper schoolhouse.
A real one. And that building got to work. It served those two farming communities — Hortontown and Neighborsville — straddling either side of Church Hill Road like the road itself was the dividing line between neighbors who were, well, neighbors in name and deed both.
After 1879, the pastors stepped back from the classroom and lay teachers took over. And here's a detail worth savoring: classes ran in both German and English. Two languages under one roof, out there on that country road, which tells you something about the people who built it and the world they were navigating.
That schoolhouse kept at it, kept teaching, kept its doors open across the decades — clear into the modern era. After 1958, the public school system itself was using the building. Then in 1975, it was given to the New Braunfels Conservation Society, to be used as a school museum.
A building that taught children for over a hundred years, now teaching anyone who walks through the door about what a schoolhouse once was. Some buildings earn their keep once. That one earned it twice.
What the marker says
St. Martin's Evangelical Lutheran pastors held day school in the church for years. In 1870 this schoolhouse was built. It served the Hortontown and Neighborsville farm communities, situated on either side of the Church Hill Road. After 1879, lay teachers were in charge, classes used both German and English. The public school system used this building after 1958; in 1975 it was given to New Braunfels Conservation Society for use as a school museum. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark -1976