Education in Plantersville

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about education in Plantersville, Grimes County. Now settle in, because this story starts with a plot of land and ends with a wrecking crew, and there's a whole lot of school bell ringing in between. When Plantersville was first laid out, whoever drew up that original plat had the foresight to set aside a four-acre lot for a school.

Four acres. That's not an afterthought. That's a commitment.

The Plantersville Masonic Lodge took that commitment seriously and built a school on that lot, a shared space, the kind of place a young town leans on when it's still figuring itself out. Across the street, on another corner lot, stood the female school, and the town surveyor himself, a man named James K. Markey, served as its first teacher.

The man who measured the land also taught the children on it. By 1865, the two schools merged into one, and the Masonic Lodge Building carried that merged school forward, year after year, decade after decade, all the way to 1912. That is a long run for one building.

But 1912 brought something new. A modern brick school rose on that same site, and it carried a proper name: Plantersville High School. Students came for grades nine through eleven, with a grammar school right there on the same campus.

Generation after generation walked through those doors. And then, quietly, the senior class of 1942 became the last class to graduate from Plantersville High School. The last.

In 1951, the school district became part of the Navasota ISD, and the high school building was razed. Gone. What started as four acres on a plat, nurtured by a lodge and a surveyor with a measuring rod, ended without a building left standing.

The legacy lives in the people who graduated, and in a marker on a corner in Plantersville.

What the marker says

In the original plat of Plantersville, a four-acre lot was set aside for a school, later built by the Plantersville Masonic Lodge as a shared space. Across the street on another corner lot was the female school where the town surveyor, James K. Markey, served as the first teacher. By 1865, the schools merged. The Masonic Lodge Building was used until 1912, when a modern brick school, named Plantersville High School, was built on the site. Students attended grades nine through eleven, with a grammar school located on the same campus. The senior class of 1942 was the last to graduate from the high school. In 1951, the school district became part of the Navasota ISD and the high school building was razed. (2020)