DUANE
The story
In the 1840s, settlers held public meetings under a tree at this site. Beginning in the 1850s, several successive 2-story frame buildings stood here and housed Masonic Lodge, church, elections, and social activities. Scyene Meeting Place housed one of the first public school sessions in Dallas County.
In her girlhood, outlaw Belle Starr was a pupil in that school. In 1872, Texas & Pacific Railroad bypassed Scyene and the town dwindled. Yet the Woodmen of the World and other groups continued to meet in the community building, and school was held here until 1927.
Bicentennial project donated by Mesquite Historical and Genealogical Society