Leesville School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker for Leesville School tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little room to breathe. This is a Gonzales County story, and it's got some good bones to it, literally. Before the Civil War, folks had already settled in and built themselves a community they called Leesburg.

It was a thriving trade and supply center for the whole region, the kind of place where things got done. And in 1868, they put up a one-room brick schoolhouse that would outlast just about every expectation anyone had for it. Now, these weren't people who ordered their building materials from somewhere fancy.

Everything came from right there. The red clay bricks for the exterior, they were manufactured in a kiln sitting just east of the building site. The lumber came out of the Daniel Brown Sawmill, which operated on nearby O'Neill Creek.

And the labor, that came from the neighbors themselves. In 1873, the building site was conveyed to the stockholders of the Leesburg Male and Female Institute by a woman named Mrs. M.

C. Hubbard. As years passed and the community kept growin, wooden additions went up on the building.

They've since been removed, but for a time this little brick schoolhouse wore them like extra rooms tacked onto a crowded family home. Classes were held here all the way until 1918, when a new schoolhouse was finally built. Then, come the nineteen twenties, the old building found a second life as a community center.

Oyster fries, barbecues, religious meetings, it hosted all of it. After that it served as a school lunchroom, and at some point even as a private residence. Rebuilt eventually back into a community center, the Leesville School is still standin.

That one-room brick building, raised by local hands, fired from local clay, cut from timber off O'Neill Creek, turned out to be the kind of thing that sticks around. Some buildings just refuse to let a community forget where it came from.

What the marker says

Settled prior to the Civil War, the community of Leesburg, later known as Leesville, was a thriving trade and supply center for the region when this one-room brick schoolhouse was constructed in 1868. The building site was conveyed to stockholders of the Leesburg Male and Female Institute in 1873 by Mrs. M. C. Hubbard. The original materials used in the construction of the schoolhouse were provided locally. Red clay bricks for the exterior were manufactured in a kiln east of the site, the lumber came from the Daniel Brown Sawmill located on nearby O'Neill Creek, and local residents provided the labor. As the community grew, wooden additions to the building, since removed, were constructed. Classes were held here until 1918, when a new schoolhouse was built. In the 1920s the building was adapted for uses as a community center and was the site of various civic functions, including oyster fries, barbecues, and religious meetings. Later it was used as a school lunchroom and a private residence. Rebuilt as a community center, the Leesville School serves as a reminder of the proud heritage of the area's early residents. (1982)