Old Close City School

Duane's take

Now, this one comes straight from the official marker, and I'm just the one lucky enough to spin it out for you. Out here in Garza County, where the land stretches wide and the sky doesn't apologize for it, there's a story about a school that had more reinventions than most towns twice its size. It starts in 1908, and it starts with a name you might recognize: C.

W. Post. That's right, the cereal magnate himself, the man who made his fortune in breakfast, had his own colony out here in West Texas.

And inside that colony, he built a commissary school. Not just any school, mind you, but one named for his son-in-law, a man by the name of E. B.

Close. And so it was called the Close City School, and that name stuck like a good biscuit to a cast-iron pan. Now here's where the story starts movin'.

Two years in, 1910, the whole school picks up and moves to this very site. You have to appreciate that kind of determination. The building didn't just stay put and hope for the best.

It relocated. Then 1916 rolls around, and the school becomes a common school district, growing into its own identity a little more. And it wasn't done yet, because by 1918 it had stepped up again, becoming an independent district.

The ambition on this place. Then comes the building. The first story goes up in 1919, and the second story follows in 1921, rising right up off the Garza County earth like the school was reaching for something.

From a commissary schoolhouse in a cereal magnate's colony to a two-story independent district in just over a decade. Out here, that's not just progress. That's a West Texas kind of story.

What the marker says

Built 1908 as a commissary school in colony of C. W. Post, cereal magnate. Named for his son-in-law, E. B. Close. In 1910, moved to this site. Became a common school district, 1916; independent district, 1918. First story was built 1919; second, 1921. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1968.