Site of Evergreen School
Shiner, Lavaca County, Texas
Marker Inscription
School trustees Ernest Meyer, W. M. Krause and Otto Henkhaus purchased two acres here from August and Anna Seifert in 1897. The two-room frame Evergreen schoolhouse was built at this site and in 1903 an additional two acres were added to the property. Evergreen School served the Henkhaus community and the surrounding area. It maintained a windmill powered water well and was heated with a wood burning stove. A principal and an assistant teacher lived in a teacherage adjacent to the school and taught grades 1-4 in one room and grades 5-8 in the other. The school averaged 60 students for its seven-month school term. In 1939 an eight-month school term was instituted and the eight grade held its first graduation exercise. The ninth grade was added in the 1940-41 school year. Funds to install electric lights at the school in 1940-41 were raised through community sponsored activities such as plays, dances, and volleyball and softball tournaments. Overcrowded conditions at Evergreen School resulted in many of its students transferring to schools in the nearby communities of Moulton and Shiner during the 1940s. Evergreen School closed in the fall of 1951 and eventually the schoolhouse was razed. 1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1897 local trustees bought two acres to build the two-room Evergreen schoolhouse, which served the Henkhaus community with a windmill-powered well, a wood stove, and a teacherage for the principal and his assistant. One room held grades one through four and the other grades five through eight, teaching about sixty children over a seven-month term. Community plays, dances, and ball tournaments even raised the money to wire the school for electric lights around 1940, before overcrowding and consolidation closed it in 1951.
Why it matters
The little Evergreen school is a portrait of the community-run rural schoolhouse that educated much of small-town America before mid-century consolidation swept it away.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dickson School
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