Mary's Creek School

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Mary's Creek School, out in Baylor County. Now, out on the Texas plains, schools had a way of rising and fading with the land itself, and Mary's Creek School is about as good a story of that as you're going to find along this stretch of road. It starts, the way so many West Texas stories start, with a railroad.

In 1906, the Wichita Valley Railroad built a line from Seymour all the way down to Abilene, and in doing so it established the town of Bomarton and consolidated settlement in this part of Baylor County. Where the railroad went, people followed, and where people followed, children came, and where children came, somebody had to build a school. Mary's Creek School was one of 38 rural schools operating in Baylor County at the time.

Thirty-eight. That tells you something about how spread out folks were across this country. Trustees organized the school in February of 1908 and built a schoolhouse not long after.

One room. Just one room to hold all the learning a child in this corner of Texas was going to get. That first room did its work for nearly two decades before a second classroom got added, around 1926.

And it wasn't just the schoolhouse, either. There was a coal house to keep the place warm, a cistern for water, outhouses for the boys and the girls, and a teacherage, a place for the teacher to actually live out here on the creek. That detail alone tells you how far from town this school really was.

The whole setup peaked in the school year of 1930 to 1931, when 69 pupils were enrolled. Sixty-nine children in a two-room schoolhouse out on Mary's Creek. That is a full house by any measure.

But the land has its seasons, and so do schools. By 1948, the area children were attending Bomarton School instead, and consolidation kept right on rolling. By 1955, Seymour was the only school district left in the entire county.

All those 38 schools, one by one, folded into one. Mary's Creek School, those two rooms and the coal house and the cistern and the teacherage, all of it gave way to something bigger. That's not a sad ending, exactly.

It's just the way of things out here. The railroad built the town, the town built the school, and the school did its work until the work was done.

What the marker says

In 1906, the Wichita Valley Railroad built from Seymour to Abilene, establishing the town of Bomarton and consolidating settlement here. Mary's Creek School was one of 38 rural schools in Baylor County. Trustees organized the school in February 1908 and built a schoolhouse soon after. The original building was one room, with a second classroom added about 1926. Additional structures included boys' and girls' outhouses, a coal house, a cistern and a teacherage. The peak attendance for Mary's Creek School was 69 pupils in 1930-31. By 1948 area children attended Bomarton School, and through consolidation, Seymour was the only school district in the county by 1955. (2007)