Gallatin School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Way out in Cherokee County, near the little community of Gallatin, there were already three schools operating in the vicinity before anybody got around to putting up a real building. Three schools, no building to speak of.

That changed in 1910, when the first school building finally went up. Now, you'd think that would be the end of the scrambling. But here's the thing about Gallatin.

Folks showed up. Enrollment ran so high that a three-room building wasn't going to cut it for long, and within a single year that building had grown to five rooms and was pulling in additional faculty just to keep up. Five rooms in a year.

That community meant business. Then came the summer of 1917, and the building burned. Just like that, gone.

School didn't stop, though. Classes moved into local churches and Woodman Hall, and Gallatin kept right on teaching. In 1918, a two-story brick building went up at the present site, three classrooms upstairs, three classrooms downstairs.

Solid. Permanent. Or as permanent as anything gets when a community keeps growing into its britches.

By 1940 and 1941, a stone gymnasium rose up with help from the Works Progress Administration, the WPA lending its hand to what Gallatin was building out here in East Texas. Then 1945 came around, and the three upstairs rooms of that old building were torn down, replaced by an auditorium, a stage, and six new classrooms. The very next year, 1946, an agricultural building was added.

And after World War II, that agricultural building pulled double duty as a G.I. School, serving veterans coming home. It later found another life with the Homemaking Department.

Every time this place needed to be something different, it became something different. That's the through line of the whole story. Then, in the summer of 1959, Gallatin held a vote.

The community voted to consolidate their school district with the Rusk Independent School District. Gallatin High School students were bused to Rusk High School. After that consolidation, the Gallatin School building didn't sit idle.

It became one of the Rusk elementary schools, teaching the first eight grades. Gallatin School as its own institution became a place of the past. But the marker doesn't leave it there, and neither will I.

That building, those rooms, that gymnasium built with WPA help, that auditorium, those six classrooms, they stand as a reminder of what the Gallatin community set out to do. Provide an education to the children of this area. And by every measure this marker gives us, they did exactly that.

What the marker says

Three schools operated within the vicinity of Gallatin at various times, before the first school building was constructed in 1910. Due to high enrollment, the three-room building grew to five rooms within a year and required additional faculty. In the summer of 1917, the building burned and school was taught in local churches and Woodman Hall. In 1918, a two-story brick building was erected at the present site with three classrooms upstairs and three classrooms downstairs. In 1940-41, a stone gymnasium was built with the help of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1945, the three upstairs rooms of the old building were torn down, and an auditorium, stage and six classrooms were added. An agricultural building was added in 1946, which was used as a G.I. School after World War II. It was later used by the Homemaking Department. In the summer of 1959, the Gallatin community voted to consolidate their school district with the Rusk Independent School District. Gallatin High School students were bused to Rusk High School. Following the consolidation, the Gallatin School building was used as one of the Rusk elementary schools, teaching the first eight grades. Gallatin School became a place of the past, but serves as a reminder of the community's successful endeavor in providing an education to children of this area.