DUANE
The story
The Panter Branch School (also spelled Painter Branch), Hood County School District No. 7, was in operation by 1898 on a 25-acre plot of land on Hill City Highway south of Tolar. The two-room schoolhouse had two teachers and up to 42 pupils in attendance. Husband and wife, Tony and Grace Morrison, shared teaching duties for several years, serving grades one through eight.
Panter Branch and other rural schools in the area often closed their doors for two or three weeks in the fall so that students could help their families pick cotton, thrash peanuts or cut feed. The school closed in the 1940s, officially consolidating with Tolar in 1949. The schoolhouse was used as a community center for many years. (2017)