DUANE
Duane's take
The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker — so let's see what it says about the Eanes School and Chapel, out here in Travis County. Now, it starts the way a lot of good Texas stories start — with a piece of land and a man attached to it. Robert Eanes, born in 1805, lived all the way to 1895, and somewhere on his property, in the year 1872, folks put up a log cabin.
That cabin was the first Eanes school. Humble as they come. But it did the job.
Two years later, in 1874, the school got itself a step up. It moved to a one-room frame structure — a proper building, you might say — on a two-acre tract right next door. That land was given by William and Sophia Teague.
Given. Not sold, not traded. Handed over.
Two acres, a deed of generosity, and a community started takin' shape around it. That one-room schoolhouse carried more weight than just arithmetic and reading. Itinerant ministers — the kind who rode a circuit and showed up when they could — conducted worship services right there inside those walls.
And just nearby, the community kept a cemetery. School, church, and burial ground, all gathered in close. That's a whole life and a whole community folded into one small piece of ground.
Things kept movin', though. By 1923, University Presbyterian Church up in Austin organized something called Eanes Chapel. And they didn't stop there.
In 1928, they erected a stone building — a real, permanent structure, stone-set and solid. That chapel stood as a landmark in its own right. Then, in 1956, that stone building was purchased — purchased for classrooms.
The chapel became a school. The circle of community use just kept on turnin'. And then 1958 rolls around, and the Eanes Independent School District gets created.
From a log cabin on Robert Eanes's property to an independent school district — in under a hundred years. By the time 1975 comes along, that district had grown into a modern educational complex with over eighteen hundred students. One log cabin.
One man's land. Two acres from a generous family. And somehow, it all became something that just kept growin'.
That's the thing about a good foundation — you never quite know how tall it'll go.
What the marker says
A log cabin built on property of Robert Eanes (1805-95) in 1872 was the first Eanes school. In 1874 the school was moved to a one-room frame structure on this adjacent 2-acre tract given by William and Sophia Teague. Itinerant ministers conducted worship services in the schoolhouse, and a community cemetery was located near by. Eanes Chapel, organized in 1923 by University Presbyterian Church in Austin, erected a stone building in 1928. It was purchased in 1956 for classrooms. The Eanes Independent School District, created in 1958, is now (1975) a modern educational complex with over 1,800 students. (1975)