Old Post High School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do it justice. Now, if you're rolling through Post, Texas, in Garza County, keep your eyes open, because this old building has got more layers to it than you might expect from a schoolhouse. We're talking about a structure built in 1928, and here's the part that stops you cold when you hear it: when they raised those walls, they didn't just pour in fresh material and call it done.

No. They worked native Garza County stones right into the lower walls. Stones that had already served once before, pulled from the town's very first school, the one that went up in 1909, not long after the city of Post itself was founded.

So the old school didn't disappear. It became the foundation of something new. That's the kind of recycling that means something.

Now, a project like that doesn't happen by accident. It takes somebody with a clear head and a stubborn streak. That somebody was Superintendent John E.

Watson. The marker calls him an outstanding educator, and it backs that up with a little biography worth noting. Watson was a veteran of World War I, and not just any outfit.

He served in the Rainbow Division, which the marker describes, without blinking, as heroic. So this is a man who had already seen what it costs to hold a line. When Watson took his stand for this building, for preserving those old stones and raising something lasting, the times were not exactly cooperative.

The marker is careful about this. It says the bond issue passed in spite of adverse circumstances. It doesn't spell out every obstacle, and I won't invent them, but that phrase carries weight.

You don't include it unless the fight was real. What helped carry the day was the Post Parent-Teachers' Association. They backed Watson's stand, and together they got it done.

The bond passed. The building went up. The stones found their second life.

And the story doesn't end in 1928 either. Years later, when the community grew and growth called for a larger educational complex, this building didn't get abandoned. It stepped aside gracefully and became Post Junior High School.

One building. Two schools. Stones from 1909, walls from 1928, a story still standing in Garza County.

That's not just construction. That's a community that knew how to keep what it built.

What the marker says

Built 1928, incorporating in lower walls native Garza County stones from the town's first (1909) school, erected soon after the founding of city of Post. This historic preservation occurred under leadership of Supt. John E. Watson, outstanding educator, veteran of World War I service in the heroic Rainbow Division. The Parent-Teachers' Association backed Watson's stand, and bond issue passed in spite of adverse circumstances. When later growth called for a larger educational complex, to meet community needs, this became Post Junior High School. 1968