Wheelock School House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. Way out in Robertson County, the community of Wheelock has been serious about education for a long, long time. We're talking back to the 1840s, when something called the Wheelock Academy was already in operation.

So when the twentieth century came rolling in, these folks weren't starting from scratch. They had a tradition to uphold. In 1907, Thomas Wade Hedrick and his son, William Love Hedrick, bought 220 acres in the area.

Now, most men buy land and think about what they can put on it for themselves. These two set aside 2.4 acres of that purchase for a new school site. Just carved it right out and said, this one's for the community.

And the community, it seems, may well have built what came next with their own money. No records of county financing have ever been found, which tells you something about the kind of people who settled Wheelock. They didn't wait around for somebody else to figure it out.

What went up in 1908 was, by any rural measure, something to behold. A two-story frame building, dormers up top, clapboard siding, double-hung windows. Four full classrooms on the first floor.

And then you climb those stairs, and the entire second floor, every bit of it, opens up into a stage and auditorium. Not a corner office. Not a storage room.

A stage. An auditorium. For the children of a rural Texas community.

By the 1930s, five teachers were working that building, serving an enrollment of two hundred pupils. Two hundred. In a place that had to pass the hat to build the schoolhouse in the first place.

Classes ran all the way through the 1949 to 1950 school year. After that, students transferred to Franklin, and the old Wheelock school took on a new role as a community center. The building that educated generations found a way to keep serving.

That's not a small thing. That's a place that knew its own worth.

What the marker says

Education in the community dates to the Wheelock Academy in the 1840s. In 1907, Thomas Wade Hedrick and his son, William Love Hedrick, bought 220 acres and set aside 2.4 acres for a new school site. No records of county financing have been found, so it was likely financed by the community. The unusually large rural school built in 1908 is a two-story frame building with dormers, clapboard siding and double-hung windows. There are four classrooms on the first floor and a stage and auditorium encompassing the entire second floor. In the 1930s, five teachers served an enrollment of 200 pupils. Classes continued until the 1949-50 school year. Students then transferred to Franklin, and the Wheelock school became a community center. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2019