DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — the story of education taking root in Round Rock, Texas. Now, you might think building a school from scratch in a brand-new county would take years of planning, committees, debates, the whole nine yards. But Jacob M.
Harrell wasn't the type to wait around. Soon after Williamson County was founded in 1848, this pioneer settler — a blacksmith, mind you, not a schoolteacher, not a politician — went ahead and built a log schoolhouse for his neighbors out at Moss' Spring on Lake Creek, about two miles southwest of where you're sitting right now. Believed to be the first school in the county.
A blacksmith built the first school. You can't write that. Well, apparently you can, because somebody did.
Then came another log cabin school, this one opened north of Brushy Creek by Samuel L. Makemson and Dr. D.
F. Knight. Two schools in a young county, both made of logs, both carved out of frontier Texas by people who decided that reading and ciphering mattered just as much as survival — maybe because they understood those things were the same.
As the area developed, folks set their sights higher. Early college training arrived in the form of the Greenwood Masonic Institute, established in 1867. That school later passed hands — operated by local Presbyterian churches, then by the city itself, under the name Round Rock Institute.
The first publicly-supported school for Round Rock students opened in 1878. Then in 1904, a second college came to town: Trinity Lutheran, which ran until 1929. Twenty-five years of higher learning, then gone.
That's a story the marker doesn't linger on, and neither will we. What it does linger on is 1913, when residents of the area voted to incorporate Williamson County Common School District No. 19 as the Round Rock Independent School District. They needed a superintendent for this new thing they'd built, and they chose M.
G. York, an area school administrator, as the first to hold that post. What followed was a long line of leadership — O.
F. Perry steering the district from 1939 to 1957, then Noel Grisham from 1957 to 1979 — and under their watch, Round Rock ISD became noted for two things: rapid growth and quality education. From a blacksmith's log schoolhouse at a spring on Lake Creek, to a full independent school district that two long-serving superintendents spent decades building — that's not a coincidence, that's a community deciding, generation after generation, that the work was worth doing.
What the marker says
Soon after Williamson County was founded in 1848, pioneer settler Jacob M. Harrell, a blacksmith, built a log schoolhouse for use by his neighbors. Believed to be the first school in the county, it was located at Moss' Spring on Lake Creek (2 mi. SW). Later, another log cabin school was opened north of Brushy Creek by Samuel L. Makemson and Dr. D. F. Knight. As the area developed, efforts were made to provide a complete community educational program. Early college training was offered by the Greenwood Masonic Institute, which was established in 1867. The school was later operated by local Presbyterian churches and by the city as Round Rock Institute. The first publicly-supported school for Round Rock students opened in 1878. A second college, Trinity Lutheran, was in operation from 1904 to 1929. In 1913 residents of the area voted to incorporate Williamson County Common School District No. 19 as the Round Rock Independent School District. M. G. York, an area school administrator, was chosen as the first Superintendent of the new school system. Under the direction of such superintendents as O. F. Perry, 1939-57, and Noel Grisham, 1957-79, the district has been noted for rapid growth and quality education.