What about photos of some of those schools..... that we did not know existed?

*Last week (June 17 issue) concluded the historical series about early schools in Texas and especially in Kaufman County. It did not take long for me to see a Forney historian or two, who asked why I did not have photos of all, or at least some, of the schools. My answer was that the material I was presenting did not lend itself very well to coordination with laws, Board edicts, legislative pronouncements, tax laws, and long listings of names in photo form and that many of the photos I might find would be very old and often indistinct! That satisfied the questioners not at all, so I will have photos of the schools for the openings of this column the next two or four issues. I have asked Mr. Cannon to “work his magic” with the old pictures I can provide.*

So, I found, so far, Wilson Chapel School, where children made up a game called “jump the ditch instead of using the bridge” and often came to school wet (1926-1927 photo); Kemp’s Academy of Learning (local school), which became the “Black School” after about twenty years (1867 photo) and Kemp’s Third School (1892 photo); South Buie School, later known for teachers who walked part way home with students to observe wild flowers, birds, and nature (1918 photo); Pyle Prairie School (1917 photo), which combined with several other local schools to establish Phoenix High School for “higher learning (burned in 1928); Liberty School at Peeltown (1919) (I believe that this brick “4-large-room-building” was divided into two rooms for the CHURCH-HOUSE and two for the TEACHERAGE.) (Earlier original schools there were “one-roomers, built in 1885 and 1902.); Tolosa School had two schools in 1901 when it was the 3rd most populous—134 students—Kaufman County District (wood photo) (1915) and (brick), which became the Community Center (1950).