Lexington Schools

Duane's take

The way I tell it, this one comes straight from the official marker for Lexington Schools in Lee County. Now settle in, because this story starts the way the best Texas stories do: with one man, a log home, and a big idea. The year was 1849, and Captain James Shaw opened his house for the very first local school session right there in Lexington.

Shaw, born in 1808 and gone by 1879, was the founder of the town itself, and apparently he was the kind of man who didn't wait around for somebody else to build what needed building. The town sat in Burleson County back then. Lee County wouldn't come along to claim it until 1874.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. In 1854, Shaw and his fellow patrons pooled their considerable ambitions. They belonged to Andrew Neill Lodge No. 138, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and that lodge joined forces with the newly-formed School District No. 9 to raise something more permanent: a two-story schoolhouse and lodge hall, set a mile south of town.

Two purposes, one building, one mile out. Texas efficiency. By 1860, that same hall was hosting the Lexington Male and Female Academy, a proper school with a proper name.

Then came a frame schoolhouse in 1892, and a brick one in 1910, each one a little more solid than the last, like the town was making a promise to itself. The present plant came along in 1936, starting with the high school building, and that's where the marker leaves the story. From a captain's log home to a high school campus, Lexington built its schools one generation at a time, and every single one of them was worth the trouble.

What the marker says

First local school session was held in 1849 in log home of Capt. James Shaw (1808-79), founder of Lexington, then in Burleson (since 1874 in Lee) County. Andrew Neill Lodge No. 138, A.F. & A.M., to which Shaw and other patrons belonged, joined with newly-formed School District No. 9 in 1854 to build a 2-story schoolhouse-lodge hall a mile south of town. In 1860 the school became Lexington Male and Female Academy, using same hall. A frame schoolhouse (1892) and one of brick (1910) antedated the present plant that was begun in 1936 with high school building. (1972)