Nash Public School
Forreston, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1873 pioneer settler Thomas Alexander Williams (1827-1900) brought his family to this area, which was known as Garden Valley. Soon after his arrival, he directed the establishment of a school for the community. Classes were conducted at this site, originally part of Williams' farm. Renamed after the Nash Post Office opened in 1883, the public school closed in 1938 and students were transferred to nearby districts. The existing two-story frame building, which served as the second schoolhouse, in now used as a community center.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1873 pioneer Thomas Alexander Williams moved his family to the Garden Valley area and promptly carved a schoolhouse out of his own farmland — a common act of community-building on the post-Civil War Texas frontier. Renamed for the Nash Post Office a decade later, the school taught local children until 1938, when consolidation moved them to neighboring districts. The surviving two-story frame schoolhouse now serves as a community center.
Why it matters
It captures how rural Americans built education from scratch, one settler's donated land at a time, and how school consolidation later reshaped country life.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Thomas Alexander Williams
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Sims Family of Ellis County
Italy, TX
The Sims family were among the first pioneers of Ellis County, settling along Chambers Creek in 1851 where Nicholas P. Sims operated a mill and helped lay out the county's early roads. In 1852 Nicholas donated land for a Methodist church and, with his brother-in-law Ezekial Marshall Brack, organized the Waxahachie Masonic Lodge; Brack went on to serve as county judge. Over 150 years the family built ranches, a cotton gin, and — through bequests from Nicholas and his stepson S. M. Dunlap — public libraries in Waxahachie and Italy.
Greathouse Community, Church, and Cemetery
Maypearl, TX
Archibald and Mary Greathouse settled here in 1848 and gave their name to a creek and the rural community that grew around a church, school, and cemetery. Settlers hauled lumber by oxcart from Waxahachie to build the Greathouse Missionary Baptist Church, and the little community even produced four ministers and a state appellate judge. When the railroad reached nearby Maypearl in 1904, families drifted away; the school closed in 1912 and the church around 1927, leaving the well-tended cemetery as the community's last witness.
Oak Lawn School
Waxahachie, TX
Founded in 1887 as an elementary school for Black children, Oak Lawn moved to this site in 1893 and soon added high school classes. Early graduates Prince Goldthwaite and Robert Davis returned to serve as principals. The school grew through the twentieth century, splitting its elementary and high schools in 1952 and continuing until it closed in 1970.
Paul Richards Park
Waxahachie, TX
In the 1910s, small Texas towns competed to lure major-league clubs south for spring training, and Waxahachie built a field—nicknamed Jungle Park—that drew the Detroit Tigers, White Sox, Reds, and other pro teams. Flood damage, a rebuilt grandstand, and years of neglect nearly ended it before native son and big-league manager Paul Richards revived the park, which reopened with lights in 1946. Long shared with the local high school, the ground has hosted community baseball for over a century.