Elm Grove Common School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Out here in Cherokee County, there's a story about a community that built something from the ground up, and I mean that just about literally. Elm Grove was a Freedmen's community, and by 1884, when the Commissioners Court set up sixty-nine school districts across the county, Elm Grove was part of that system.

Sixty-nine districts. They were serious about schoolin' in Cherokee County. But having a district on paper and having a place to actually hold class, well, those are two different things.

For a good while, the children of Elm Grove gathered in a local church or in people's homes, making do with what was available. That went on through the eighties and into the nineties. Then, sometime in the 1890s, something changed.

R. B. and Caroline Wood gave the land. Just gave it.

And the citizens of Elm Grove, they didn't wait around for someone else to swing a hammer. They built the schoolhouse themselves, with donated materials, and what they raised was one large room. One room to hold everything a community wanted to pass on to its children.

Now, a single room can only hold so much, and by 1917 a merger with other schools brought in enough students that the interior had to be divided into three classrooms. The building that started as one open space got carved up to meet the need. That school stood and served for decades after that, all the way until 1957, when it merged with Rusk schools and the doors of Elm Grove Common School closed for the last time.

From a church pew and a borrowed kitchen table, to a schoolhouse built by the hands of the people it served. That's Elm Grove.

What the marker says

Elm Grove, a Freedmen's community, was part of the county school system by 1884, when 69 school districts were set up by the Commissioners Court. Classes were held in a local church or in homes until the 1890s when a schoolhouse was erected on land given by R. B. and Caroline Wood. Built by Elm Grove citizens with donated materials, the building was originally one large room. A merger with other schools in 1917 increased the student population, and the interior was divided into three classrooms. The school closed in 1957 when it merged with Rusk schools. (1997)