Anneville School
Decatur, Wise County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located on 3-acres donated in 1883 by E. M. Curtner, N. E. Young, P. H. and N. C. Neal for a cemetery, school, and church. First school (a 2-story building) was 30 yards west of cemetery. First church was about 300 yards south of the cemetery. About 1913 a new school was erected on original school site. In 1930 the school district consolidated with Boyd District. The structure was then used as a church until it burned, 1959. Anneville, one-mile south, had 2 stores, a post office, gin, gristmill, and other businesses. It was probably named in honor of Mrs. Annie Davis, early settler.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1883 four local landowners donated three acres for a cemetery, school, and church, and the Anneville School—a two-story building—rose just west of the graveyard. The little settlement of Anneville, probably named for early settler Annie Davis, supported stores, a post office, a gin, and a gristmill. The school district consolidated with Boyd in 1930, and the old building served as a church until fire took it in 1959.
Why it matters
The shared plot for school, church, and cemetery captures how frontier Texans built the institutions of community life together on a single donated tract.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · E. M. Curtner
- · Annie Davis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sand Hill Community
Sand Hill, TX
Gathered around a good spring at the foot of the hill that named it, Sand Hill became a cradle of pioneer life in the country that would become Wise County. The first Methodist church in the area was organized in Jim Brooks's home in 1854, and a donated cabin nicknamed "Old Swayback" for its sagging ridgepole soon served all faiths as church and, by 1855, probably the county's first school. A campground, gristmill, Masonic lodge, and cemetery followed, the graveyard now holding settlers, Civil War veterans, and the noted Texas Ranger Ira Long.
Masonic Lodge #479
Boyd, TX
Built in 1877 at Old Aurora, two miles east, this two-story building served the community in many roles—its lower floor first a school renting for $2.50 a month, then a drugstore and post office, while the upper floor was always a Masonic lodge hall. When the railroad bypassed Aurora and the town began to fade, the whole structure was moved here in one piece in 1900. Its journey mirrors the fortunes of a settlement left behind by the rails.
Pleasant Grove No. 2 Cemetery, School and Church
Pleasant Grove, TX
One of three Wise County communities named Pleasant Grove, this settlement's cemetery holds marked graves dating to the late 1870s. In 1879 neighbors built a frame schoolhouse on donated land that doubled as a church and community hall; the school consolidated with Boyd in 1929 and the old building gave way to a rock church in 1942, while the cemetery remains in use.
First Baptist Church of Decatur
Decatur, TX
Organized in 1856 under the Rev. J.T. Willis, this Baptist congregation first met in a Taylorsville log cabin in the town that became Decatur. By the late 1880s its pastor was preaching to both the white congregation and Decatur's African American community, and the church worked closely with the school that grew into Decatur Baptist College. Generations of pastors kept the congregation woven into the town's civic and educational life.