DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Back around the turn of the twentieth century, a group of Indiana families made a decision — the kind of decision that sounds like destiny when it's working out and sounds like a mistake when it isn't. In 1900, led by John M.
Hart and Roland Alexander, they packed up and migrated all the way down to this corner of Texas. Now, somebody had been doing some real enthusiastic promoting of this land — abundant timber, rich soil, the whole promise. You can picture the pitch.
What those families found when they arrived, though, was something considerably different. The land was unfertile. And it was susceptible to flooding.
That's the kind of gap between advertisement and reality that has a way of sorting people out in a hurry. And sort them it did. Many of those pioneers turned right around and headed back to Indiana.
But some of them stayed. The ones who stayed looked at what they had, and they did what stubborn-hearted people do — they built something. They named their community Little Indiana, which tells you something about where their hearts still were, even as their boots were planted in Wood County, Texas.
One of the very first things those settlers did was set aside land for a school. And the schoolhouse didn't just appear — it was a community effort from the ground up. Logs were hauled by oxen-drawn wagons to the local sawmill, where they were cut for use in the building project.
You think about those oxen plodding through that difficult land, hauling the very timber that would shape the future of the place. The seven-grade Little Indiana School opened about 1901, and standing at the front of that classroom was Alta Alexander Hart — the sole teacher. She was it.
Just her and however many children a frontier community could gather together. Later, Hazel Alexander, Harrison Bullock, William McCreight, and Ola McCreight would also take their turns teaching in that schoolhouse. For a few years, the community grew.
Things seemed to be taking hold. But by 1907, illness moved through Little Indiana, and poor crops took what the illness didn't. The abandonment came on.
The school closed. The other establishments closed. Some of the settlers went back to Indiana.
Others scattered to different parts of Texas, carrying Little Indiana with them in nothing more than memory. The whole community — born in 1900, opened a school around 1901, gone by 1907. Short-lived, as the marker says, but not forgotten.
Not entirely. Because here in Wood County, the story of Little Indiana still counts as part of the early pioneering effort — a place that dared to exist, even when the land wasn't cooperating.
What the marker says
In 1900 a group of Indiana families, led by John M. Hart and Roland Alexander, migrated to this area of Texas. They arrived to find the land, which had been promoted as abundant in timber and rich soil, to be unfertile and susceptible to flooding. Many of the pioneers returned to their home state, but those who remained established a community they named Little Indiana. Soon after their arrival, the settlers of Little Indiana set aside land for a school. Construction of the schoolhouse was a community effort. Logs were hauled by oxen-drawn wagons to the local sawmill, where they were cut for use in the building project. The seven-grade Little Indiana School opened about 1901, with Alta Alexander Hart as the sole teacher. Later teachers included Hazel Alexander, Harrison Bullock, William McCreight, and OIa McCreight. The community grew for several years; by 1907, however, illness and poor crops brought about the abandonment of Little Indiana. The school and other establishments closed, and though many of the settlers returned to Indiana, others moved to different parts of Texas. Little Indiana School, while short-lived, remains part of the history of Wood County's early pioneering efforts. (1983)