Lamar School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it right along to you. Way out on the South Plains, in Hale County, the story of Lamar School starts the way so many good Texas stories do — with raw earth and sheer determination. The year was 1887, the very same year Plainview itself was founded, and the men of that brand-new town didn't wait around.

They built a schoolhouse. Now don't go picturing a proud brick building with a bell tower. This first structure was a half-dugout sod building — part dug into the ground, part stacked up from the prairie itself — sitting northwest of this very site.

Judge J. M. Carter and Colonel R.

P. Smyth supervised the work, and local men did the building. That humble sod structure pulled more than one kind of weight for the community.

It served as a gathering place, a common ground, and inside those earthen walls, at least two local churches were organized. One building, doing the work of many. That's pioneer country for you.

Then came 1889, and the Plainview Masonic Lodge stepped up. They constructed a proper two-story frame building, west of this site. The lodge took the second floor for their meetings, and the school moved into the ground floor.

Things were looking up — literally. By 1893 that school had grown grand enough in its own estimation to carry a name: The Llano Estacado Institute for Male and Female. Roll that around on your tongue.

There's ambition baked right into every syllable of it. But 1902 had other plans. The building burned.

Just like that, the Llano Estacado Institute for Male and Female was gone. Now here's the thing about Plainview — that same year, 1902, the community organized the Plainview Independent School District, and the elementary school that rose from those ashes was renamed in honor of Mirabeau B. Lamar, the noted Texas leader.

A two-story schoolhouse stood on this site, and in 1910 it was moved to make way for the original section of the present building. In time, Lamar School also served as a vocational training center — another reinvention, another layer of purpose. From a half-dugout in the prairie to a place that trained the hands and minds of a growing city, Lamar School carries the whole arc of Plainview's pioneer educational, social, and religious life right here in its walls.

The earth they started with is long gone. The story isn't.

What the marker says

The first Plainview schoolhouse was built in 1887, the year the town was founded. Located northwest of this site, it was a half-dugout sod building similar to many of the pioneer homes of the area. Built by local men under the supervision of Judge J. M. Carter and Col. R. P. Smyth, the structure also served as a community center and was used for the organization of at least two local churches. In 1889 the Plainview Masonic Lodge constructed a two-story frame building west of this site. The second floor was used for lodge meetings and the ground floor was occupied by the school, which became known as The Llano Estacado Institute for Male and Female in 1893. The building served as the schoolhouse until it burned in 1902. Shortly after the organization of the Plainview Independent School District in 1902, the elementary school was renamed in honor of the noted Texas leader Mirabeau B. Lamar. A two-story schoolhouse at this site was moved in 1910 when the original section of the present building was constructed. Later used as a vocational training center, Lamar School reflects the pioneer educational, social, and religious growth of the community. 1981