Site of Cost School
Cost, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the 1890s, children of families living in the Cost community, originally known as Oso, attended area schools that were part of the White School District No. 38 and the County School District No. 38-1/2 to the east. By 1903, the county built the Cost Community School, although some students attended Oso School about two miles west of Cost. In 1915, officials created the Cost Common School District No. 22. Trustees R.N. Hester, B.L. Dikes, Otto Luescher, Ernst Schieberle and Samuel Lester hired noted architect Henry T. Phelps to design a new building to house grades one through ten at this site on land given and sold to the district by Schieberle and Dikes. Gonzales resident Fred Meisenhelder won the contract for construction, and the two-story brick schoolhouse opened its doors to 125 students on October 2, 1916. In May 1918, the first students graduated from the school. During the next several years, the school curriculum expanded from basic subjects to include music, homemaking, manual training (shop) and athletics. The district added a wood-frame lunchroom facility in 1948. The next year, the Cost District was annexed into the Gonzales Independent School District, and students began making the transition to Gonzales schools. Cost School closed its doors in May 1959, and the next year a local property owner bought it and used the bricks to construct a home across the road. For many years, community groups continued to use the former lunchroom for meetings, but today the Cost School is only a memory. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The rural community of Cost—once known as Oso—patched together its schooling from scattered district schools until, in 1915, trustees hired noted architect Henry T. Phelps to design a proper schoolhouse. The two-story brick building opened in 1916 to 125 students, and over the years its curriculum grew from the basics to music, homemaking, shop, and athletics. After the district was folded into Gonzales in 1949, the school closed in 1959 and its very bricks were carried off to build a house across the road.
Why it matters
The story of Cost School traces the rise and consolidation of rural public education in Texas, and the quiet disappearance of the small country schools that once anchored farm communities.
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Related people
- · Henry T. Phelps
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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