First School House

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and here's how I'm passin' it along to you. Way back in 1852, a man named J. L.

O'Conner set out to build something lasting at Center Point. He went to the Guadalupe River, not far off at all, and he cut cypress logs, twelve by fourteen inches, big sturdy timbers pulled right from the riverbank. That alone was a task worth talking about around a fire.

But O'Conner wasn't done. He needed mortar to hold it all together, so he mixed it by hand, baked lime and sand dug from shallow pits in the local earth. Nothing shipped in, nothing easy.

Everything close, everything made. The roof got covered in cypress shakes, and here's a detail the marker wants you to remember: the making of those shakes was the first industry along the Guadalupe in Kerr County. The first.

Before commerce, before enterprise took root along that river, there was a man splitting cypress for a roof. Now, that cabin sat quiet for a few years after it went up. Then in 1858, pioneer Texas children in the Center Point community walked through its door and it became the first school.

Twelve by fourteen inch logs holding the weight of young minds, frontier lessons, the whole uncertain promise of a place still finding itself. The story doesn't end there. That cabin was moved, eventually, out to the Y.O.

Ranch, where it was restored. Something built in 1852 with hand-mixed mortar and river-cut timber, still standing, still telling. Some things in Texas are just stubborn enough to last.

What the marker says

Built in 1852 by J. L. O'Conner at Center Point with cypress logs (12 by 14 inches) cut from nearby Guadalupe River. Mortar was a hand-mixed solution of baked lime and sand dug from local shallow pits. The making of cypress shakes for roofing was first industry along Guadalupe in Kerr County. Cabin served as first school for pioneer Texas children in Center Point community in 1858. Moved to Y.O. Ranch; restored. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967