New Summerfield Public School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Cherokee County, where the old Tyler-Rusk road and the Jacksonville-Henderson road came together, a community took root. They called it Union Chapel.

And from the very beginning, the people there understood something important: you build a community around learning. Public education started here in the 1850s, and in those early years, classes were held right inside the Union Chapel Church, which served the community as an ecumenical worship facility and a gathering place all at once. One building doing double and triple duty.

That was Union Chapel. Then, in 1895, they built a dedicated one-room schoolhouse. Progress.

Real, honest-to-goodness progress. Two years later, in 1897, a United States post office came to the community, and it arrived under the name Summerfield. And just like that, the school followed suit.

Union Chapel School became Summerfield School. The post office, though, didn't stick around long. By 1905 it was closed.

But the school kept growing, kept pulling in the surrounding schools as communities consolidated around it. They built a two-room structure in 1906. Fine building.

Served the community well. And then 1920 came along, and a windstorm destroyed it. Just like that, gone.

Now here is where the story picks back up, because that same year, they replaced it. Not with wood this time. Brick.

The first brick structure in Summerfield. That building was a statement. By 1929, the Summerfield Independent School District was formally organized.

Then, in 1938, a new post office came to town. But there was a complication. Another Texas town was already carrying the name Summerfield.

So this community became New Summerfield. And the school became the New Summerfield School. Throughout all of it, every name change, every windstorm, every rebuilding, this school has been the center of scholastic and social life for the people here.

It has been the focal point of the community, the marker says, and from everything the story tells us, that is exactly what it earned.

What the marker says

Public education in the Union Chapel community, which developed here at the junction of the old Tyler-Rusk and Jacksonville- Henderson roads, began in the 1850s. Early classes were held in the Union Chapel Church, an ecumenical worship facility and community center. A one-room schoolhouse was built in 1895, and after an U.S. post office was established in 1897 under the name Summerfield, the school name changed from Union Chapel School to Summerfield School. The post office closed in 1905. As new facilities were built, surrounding schools began to consolidate with the Summerfield School. A two-room structure built in 1906 was destroyed in a 1920 windstorm. It was replaced that year by a new brick building, the first brick structure in Summerfield. By 1929 the Summerfield Independent School District was formed. A new post office for the community was established in 1938. Because another Texas town was named Summerfield, this became New Summerfield. Throughout its history, the New Summerfield School has been the center of scholastic and social activities. It continues to serve as the focal point of the community.