Site of Holt School
Silverton, Briscoe County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(2 miles east) In 1913, G.C. Holt moved his wife and eight children to the Briscoe-Floyd county line. Because of the distance to the nearest school, Holt and neighbor E.M. Lawson organized the Holt School District, commissioned on September 7, 1920 with two acres of land. In 1921, trustees built a one-room frame schoolhouse, and it opened with 15 students, one teacher and courses for grades 1-7. Over the years, teachers often boarded with local families. The school closed in 1933 during the Great Depression, and the building stood vacant until 1944, when it was dismantled. Later, an irrigation well for area farms was located on the former school site. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Holt family arrived at the Briscoe–Floyd county line in 1913, the nearest school was too far for their children, so G.C. Holt and neighbor E.M. Lawson organized their own district in 1920. A one-room frame schoolhouse opened in 1921 with fifteen students and a single teacher covering grades one through seven, with instructors often boarding among local families. The Great Depression closed it in 1933, and after standing empty the building was dismantled in 1944.
Why it matters
The Holt School is a small window into how frontier and Depression-era Texas families built and sustained their own rural education before consolidation swept such districts away.
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Related people
- · G.C. Holt
- · E.M. Lawson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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