DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Moline School Site, right there on the north central boundary line of Lampasas County. Now, every good story starts somewhere, and this one starts in the 1880s, when families began putting down roots in the Moline community. The Carswells.
The Cooks. The Andersons and the Woods. The Bakers, the O'Neals, the Hairstons, the Pattersons, the Poes, the Murphys, the Adamses, and the Woolseys.
You get the picture — this was a community taking shape, one family at a time, out on that boundary line between Lampasas County and the wide open country around it. Now, settlers need schools the way ranches need fences, and the children of Moline were making do — riding or walking to Payne Gap over in Mills County, or heading to the Gray community to get their learning. That worked for a while.
But communities have a way of growing, and those schools had a way of filling up, and eventually there just wasn't enough room for all the children pouring in from the surrounding land. Something had to give. And in 1916, it did.
Kenneth A. and Olive Patterson stepped up and donated five acres of land — five acres — for a school that would belong to Moline itself. Then G. C.
O'Neal, with the help of other citizens, went to work constructing the original three-room building. And here's a detail worth savoring: they didn't just plunk it down anywhere. They set it prominently on a hill — one hundred yards southeast of where you're standing — overlooking the whole community.
Like it was meant to watch over the place. From that beginning in 1916, the Moline School grew. It kept growing.
By the time it reached its stride, it had five classrooms, a science lab, a library, a homemaking room, a shop, a lunchroom, and a four-room teacherage. That is not a little country schoolhouse anymore — that is an institution. And in the early 1930s, during its peak enrollment, Moline School stood as the largest rural school in all of Lampasas County.
Think about that. The biggest. But here's where the story turns quiet.
In 1949, the school closed. The children stopped coming up that hill. And Moline — that community of Carswells and Pattersons and O'Neals and all the rest — is now a ghost town.
The hill is still there. The history is still there. And the marker tells us plainly that that history is an important part of the heritage of Lampasas County.
Some things outlast the buildings that held them.
What the marker says
The Moline community was settled on the north central boundary line of Lampasas County in the 1880s. Early families in the area were the Carswells, Cooks, Andersons, Woods, Bakers, O'Neals, Hairstons, Pattersons, Poes, Murphys, Adamses, and Woolseys. Children of the settlers attended school in Payne Gap (Mills County) or in the Gray community. Facilities at these schools grew too small to accommodate the number of children in the area. In 1916, Kenneth A. and Olive Patterson donated five acres of land for the Moline School. Prominently sited on a hill (100 yds. SE) overlooking the community, the original three-room building was constructed by G. C. O'Neal with the help of other citizens. From 1916 until 1949, Moline School grew to include five classrooms, a science lab, library, homemaking room, shop, lunchroom, and a four-room teacherage. During its peak enrollment in the early 1930s, Moline was the largest rural school in Lampasas County. Although the school closed in 1949 and Moline is now a ghost town, their history is an important part of the heritage of Lampasas County.