Cresson School

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Cresson School, out there in Hood County. Pull over if you can, because this one's got a few good turns in it. About ten years after settlers first started moving into this part of Texas, Hood County was carved out of part of Johnson County, and that happened in 1866.

The town of Cresson was platted in the late 1880s, and a surveyor by the name of Madison Jones later deeded land at this very site for school purposes. Now, Cresson being a rural community, it did what rural communities do. It started with a one-room schoolhouse, sitting just west of where the marker stands today.

That little one-room building got torn down in 1890 when a two-story frame structure went up right here in its place. That two-story schoolhouse served its students until 1918, when a larger, red brick building replaced it. And that red brick building, well, it burned.

October 1930. Gone. So now you've got children needing classrooms and no building to put them in, and the school district working to figure out what comes next.

In the meantime, students attended classes at local churches. The district brought in the M.I. Wallace and Company architectural firm out of Dallas to do the designing, and county school superintendent Victor B.

Penuel chose the appearance for the new building. What they came up with was a yellow-brick, mission revival schoolhouse, completed in 1931. It had an auditorium and four large classrooms.

The design included cartouches and decorative elements in the window surrounds. And if you look at the central parapet on the main facade, it was designed to resemble the curved parapet of the Alamo in San Antonio. That's not nothing, out here in Hood County.

Over the years that followed, fund-raisers added a kitchen and indoor restroom facilities. The community was building something to be proud of, one year at a time. Then July 1965 brought a severe storm that damaged several buildings in Cresson, and lightning struck the school.

That Alamo-style parapet, the one that gave the building its signature look, was damaged and later replaced. Two years after that, in 1967, Cresson consolidated with Granbury schools, and the building sat abandoned. Sat quiet.

For years. But in the late 1970s, a community group organized to work for its restoration, and today that yellow-brick schoolhouse serves as a community center, a living link to Cresson's early educational programs. Three buildings burned or torn down before it.

One storm tried to take a piece of it. And it's still standing.

What the marker says

Cresson School Approximately ten years after settlers began moving to this area, Hood County was formed from part of Johnson County in 1866. Cresson was platted in the late 1880s, and surveyor Madison Jones later deeded land at this site for school purposes. Cresson, like many of the rural communities surrounding it, started its school programs in one-room schoolhouses. Cresson's was located just west of this site and was torn down in 1890 when a two-story frame structure was erected here. This schoolhouse was used until 1918, when it was replaced by a larger, red brick building that burned years later in October 1930. Students attended classes at local churches while the school district worked to build a new schoolhouse. The M.l. Wallace & Co. architectural firm from Dallas served as designer, and county school superintendent Victor B. Penuel chose the appearance for the new school building. The yellow-brick, mission revival schoolhouse was completed in 1931, with an auditorium and four large classrooms. Design elements include cartouches and decorative elements in window surrounds. Fund-raisers held during subsequent years added a kitchen and indoor restroom facilities. In July 1965, a severe storm damaged several buildings in Cresson, and lightning struck the school. The central parapet on the main façade, designed to resemble the curved parapet of the Alamo in San Antonio, was damaged and later replaced. After Cresson consolidated with Granbury schools in 1967, the school building sat abandoned; a community group organized in the late 1970s to work for its restoration. Today, the school serves as a community center and as a link to Cresson's early educational programs. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2003