McCamey Junior High School
McCamey, Upton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site is "Old High School," an outgrowth of 1920s oil boom. No school existed in McCamey prior to 1925, when 20 students were taught in a tin shack on 5th street. A year later school had 550 pupils in classes held in dance halls, skating rinks and 2 churches. Desks and seats were apple and orange crates. This building, erected in 1927, was community center-- setting for weddings, funerals, meetings of Draft Board, other activities. Used as high school until 1961. First superintendent, C. V. Compton, set high goals-- which since have guided the schools.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the 1920s oil boom conjured McCamey out of the desert, the town had no school at all—just twenty pupils in a tin shack in 1925. A year later 550 children crowded into dance halls, skating rinks, and churches, using apple and orange crates for desks. This 1927 building finally gave them a proper home, and it doubled as the community's civic center, hosting everything from weddings to Draft Board meetings until it closed as a high school in 1961.
Why it matters
The scramble to school a boomtown's children shows how instant oil communities improvised the institutions of settled life, with the schoolhouse often serving as the whole town's gathering place.
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Related people
- · C. V. Compton
Themes & tags
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