Site of Abilene's First School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little West Texas wind behind it. Way back in the early 1880s, a newspaperman by the name of Stoddard Johnston sat down with a blank map and drew a town into existence. He platted the town of Abilene, and when he did, he set this very site aside for use as a school.

Now that's the kind of forward thinking that gets a man remembered. But here's the thing about ambition and construction, they don't always move at the same pace. The schoolhouse hadn't finished going up yet, so in the spring of 1881, while hammers were still swinging somewhere nearby, the children of Abilene sat down for class inside a tent.

A tent, pitched right between Hickory and Cedar streets. You want frontier education, there it is. And once that schoolhouse did get built, it wasn't just a schoolhouse.

That was typical for early frontier towns, the marker tells us, and Abilene was no exception. The same four walls that heard arithmetic lessons on a weekday heard church worship services come Sunday. It was a community center, a classroom, a congregation, all rolled into one modest structure sitting on this patch of ground.

But towns have a way of growing faster than their buildings, and by 1884, the student population had outgrown the schoolhouse entirely. A new structure was built elsewhere, and this site passed into memory. It's a small piece of ground, easy to walk right past.

But it's where Abilene's children first sat down to learn, some of them under nothing but canvas sky.

What the marker says

This site was set aside for use as a school by Stoddard Johnston, a newspaperman who platted the town of Abilene in the early 1880s. While the first schoolhouse was under construction in the spring of 1881, classes were held in a tent pitched between Hickory and Cedar streets. As was typical in early frontier towns, the schoolhouse also served as a community center and was used for church worship services. By 1884, the student population had outgrown the schoolhouse, and a new structure was built elsewhere. This site is a reminder of Abilene's early education history. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986