North Side School

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the North Side School in Arlington, Tarrant County. Now, this is a story about a little building that just refused to quit. In 1909, the North Side School over at 433 North Center burned.

Gone. And somebody had to do something fast, because children still needed their schoolin'. So up went a board and batten structure, right there on the same school grounds where the old one had stood.

Nothing fancy, but it held two grades under its roof for one full term while a proper new brick building was being erected. One term. That was all it was ever meant for.

And here's where the story takes a turn. The contractor who built that modest little schoolhouse, a man by the name of Joseph Crawley, he bought it himself. Bought the very thing he'd just built.

Then he moved it over to 304 South Pecan and put it to work as his office. Years passed. 1924 rolled around, and the old schoolhouse got demoted again; this time to a storage shed. A storage shed.

Arlington's oldest existing schoolhouse, hauling boxes and collecting dust. But the story wasn't finished. In 1977, that stubborn little board and batten building was relocated one more time, returning it to the public eye after all those years.

Three lives in one structure, a school, an office, a shed, and still standing when most buildings half its age had long since vanished. That little schoolhouse outlasted just about everything.

What the marker says

After Arlington's North Side School at 433 North Center burned in 1909, this board and batten structure was built on the school grounds. Two grades met here for one term until a new brick building was erected. Contractor Joseph Crawley, who built this structure bought it and moved it to 304 South Pecan. It served as his office until 1924 when it became a storage shed. In 1977 Arlington's oldest existing schoolhouse was relocated here.