Ozona Junior High School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm taking it from the top. Way out in Crockett County, there's a building that's been standing longer than most folks care to count, and the stone it's made of never let it forget where it came from. This is the story of the Ozona Junior High School.

The first permanent school building in all of Ozona. And friend, that detail matters. First permanent.

Meaning everything before it was, well, let's just say less committed to the idea of staying put. The building went up between 1910 and 1912, at a time when Ozona itself was only twenty-one years old. A young town, putting down roots in limestone and long-term debt, the way Texas towns do.

To finance the whole thing, the county sold seventy-five thousand dollars worth of long-term bonds. That is not a small number for a twenty-one-year-old town in the middle of West Texas. Somebody believed in this place.

Now, the man overseeing the whole operation was C. E. Davidson, county school superintendent and judge, who served as general foreman of construction.

When you stop and think about that combination of titles, superintendent, judge, and general foreman, you start to get a picture of a man who simply did not believe in standing on the sidelines. The stonework itself was overseen by Walter Kyle, and the material he had to work with was native limestone, the kind the land out here practically hands you if you know how to ask. But here is where the story takes a turn that even the most seasoned road-tripper ought to slow down for.

The heating and ventilating system installed in that building had never before been used anywhere in the state of Texas when it went in. Never before used in the state. They put something in that school that nobody in Texas had tried yet, and you want to know the part that really lands?

It is still in operation. Daily. Whatever C.

E. Davidson and Walter Kyle and the people of Ozona set in motion in that limestone building all those years ago, it never stopped running. First permanent school.

First-of-its-kind system in the state. Still going. Some things, it turns out, are built to last.

What the marker says

The first permanent school building in Ozona; constructed of native limestone in 1910-1912, when Ozona was only 21 years old. The heating and ventilating system, never before used in the state when installed here, is still in operation daily. County school superintendent and judge, C. E. Davidson, was the general foreman of construction. Walter Kyle oversaw stonework. Building was financed by sale of $75,000 of long-term bonds. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1968