The Savage Schools

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, out here in Hill County, there's a name that got attached to not just one school, not two, but three separate schools, all going by the same handle: the Savage Schools. Three schools, one name, and a story that stretches from 1885 all the way to 1950.

Pull up a chair. This one's got layers. It starts with a man named George W.

Savage, who donated land back in 1885 so the first school could be built. One room. That's it.

And if you think the school day ran sunrise to sundown without interruption, well, you'd be wrong. Classes were scheduled around students' farm work. The land came first, because the land always came first out here.

That was school number one. Then came school number two, built over in the Walling community. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

But communities shift, and by 1920 those Walling students had started attending class at the original Savage School, which by then had moved into larger quarters right at this very site. When the students left, the second school closed. No students, no school.

Simple as that. And then there was the third. Savage Colored School, which served black students in the area, until they transferred to Pelham School over in nearby Navarro County.

Three schools, each carrying that same name, each serving a different piece of this community in its own time and its own way. The last Savage School closed in 1950. Sixty-five years after that first one-room building went up on donated land, the name finally went quiet.

Three schools. One name. All of it right here in Hill County.

What the marker says

Three schools in this area were referred to as Savage School. The first, built on land donated by George W. Savage in 1885, was a one-room facility where classes were scheduled around students' farm work. The second, built in the Walling community, closed in 1920 after its students began attending class at the original Savage School, which had moved into larger quarters at this site. The third, Savage Colored School, served black students in the area until they transferred to Pelham School in nearby Navarro County. The last Savage School closed in 1950.