Education in Round Rock
Round Rock, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Soon after Williamson County was founded in 1848, pioneer settler Jacob M. Harrell, a blacksmith, built a log schoolhouse for use by his neighbors. Believed to be the first school in the county, it was located at Moss' Spring on Lake Creek (2 mi. SW). Later, another log cabin school was opened north of Brushy Creek by Samuel L. Makemson and Dr. D. F. Knight. As the area developed, efforts were made to provide a complete community educational program. Early college training was offered by the Greenwood Masonic Institute, which was established in 1867. The school was later operated by local Presbyterian churches and by the city as Round Rock Institute. The first publicly-supported school for Round Rock students opened in 1878. A second college, Trinity Lutheran, was in operation from 1904 to 1929. In 1913 residents of the area voted to incorporate Williamson County Common School District No. 19 as the Round Rock Independent School District. M. G. York, an area school administrator, was chosen as the first Superintendent of the new school system. Under the direction of such superintendents as O. F. Perry, 1939-57, and Noel Grisham, 1957-79, the district has been noted for rapid growth and quality education.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Not long after Williamson County was organized in 1848, blacksmith Jacob M. Harrell built a log schoolhouse for his neighbors — thought to be the county's first school. From those rough beginnings the Round Rock area steadily built a fuller educational system: the Greenwood Masonic Institute in 1867, the first publicly supported school in 1878, and later Trinity Lutheran College. In 1913 residents incorporated the Round Rock Independent School District, which grew under long-serving superintendents into a district known for both expansion and quality.
Why it matters
The marker traces the American ideal of universal education taking root on the frontier, from a lone log cabin school to a modern public school district.
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Related people
- · Jacob M. Harrell
- · Noel Grisham
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Barker House
Round Rock, TX
E. B. and Mary Harvey Barker bought this house of locally quarried limestone in 1873. Though the family farmed at Rice's Crossing some twenty miles east, they wintered here so their eight children could attend school in Round Rock. Their son Dudley grew up to become a noted Texas Ranger, returning in 1940 to etch his birth date into an interior wall. The dwelling survives as an intact example of a vernacular center-passage house.
In Memory of The Pioneer Builders
Round Rock, TX
In the decades after the Civil War, small Texas communities pooled their own money and labor to educate their children, and Round Rock was no exception. From 1867 to 1891 the Greenwood Masonic Institute and its successor, the Round Rock Institute—run under Cumberland and Southern Presbyterian auspices—served local families under the motto 'Built for the People by the People.' The State of Texas raised this memorial in 1936 to the pioneers who built those schools.
Trinity Lutheran College
Round Rock, TX
Founded by the Augustana Lutheran Synod, Trinity Lutheran College opened in Round Rock in 1906 after the town lured it with a well, city lots, and railroad freight concessions. A three-story native-stone building housed its first classes, and the school earned state accreditation in 1920 despite chronic financial strain. When it failed and merged in 1929, the campus took on new life as Lutheran homes for children and the aged.
Confederate Chaplains Rev. Edward Hudson_Rev. John Hudson
Round Rock, TX
Brothers Edward and John Hudson were Presbyterian ministers and teachers who came to Williamson County from Arkansas in 1856. Both served the Confederacy as chaplains — Edward joining an infantry company in 1862 and being wounded at Corinth and again in Georgia, John enlisting in a Texas cavalry regiment and serving to the war's end. On a private's pay, a chaplain held services, taught illiterate soldiers to read and write, tended the sick, and carried the dead from the field.