Site of Four Pines School
Palestine, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1911 school trustees D. Barry, C. F. Everett, and W. L. Pickle purchased one acre of land here to establish a school. An old tobacco barn at this site was converted for use as a schoolhouse. The school was named for four prominent pine trees near the school entrance. By 1918 the barn/school building had been razed and replaced with a 3-room frame schoolhouse. The school offered instruction in grades one through eight. Funds raised by students through the sale of farm animals and cotton grown on school grounds were used by trustees to purchase an adjacent lot in 1925. In 1946 Four Pines had four teachers and a student enrollment of 67. The Harmony and Pleasant Grove Consolidated School Districts merged with Four Pines in 1949, and three classrooms and a gymnasium/auditorium building were added to the school complex. Athletic teams wore the school's green and gold colors and were known as the "Pine Burrs." In 1937 the nearby Magnolia, Long Lake, and Tucker schools formed the Woodhouse School District. In 1959 Woodhouse merged with Four Pines to form the Tucker common School District which in 1976 was renamed Westwood. Westwood Elementary School is currently on the same site as the original Four Pines School. (1993)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1911, three school trustees bought an acre of East Texas farmland and turned an old tobacco barn into a schoolhouse, naming it for four tall pines that framed the entrance. Generations of rural children learned their grades one through eight here, even raising cotton and livestock on the grounds to fund the school's growth. Through a chain of mid-century mergers the little green-and-gold "Pine Burrs" campus evolved into what is now Westwood Elementary, still standing on the same ground.
Why it matters
It captures the story of the one- and three-room country schools that once dotted rural America, and how waves of consolidation gathered them into the modern public districts we know today.
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Related people
- · D. Barry
- · C. F. Everett
- · W. L. Pickle
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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