Site of Oak Grove School
Moulton, Lavaca County, Texas
Marker Inscription
According to local tradition, Oak Grove School was established as early as 1882 and named for a grove of post oak trees located near the school's original one-room building. The school, which probably offered primary through eighth grade instruction, stood on property owned by August and Ernestine Wenske. The first recorded documentation concerning the Oak Grove School is included in a deed executed by the Wenskes in 1894 containing information on the sale of land for school purposes. The school building was enlarged in the early 1900s into an L-shaped structure and in 1909 Oak Grove School added another teacher to its faculty. A new three-room schoolhouse was built in 1928 and by 1937 Oak Grove had increased its faculty to three persons. The main road to the school was upgraded by the Public Work Administration (PWA) between the years 1938 and 1942. The community supported the school by sponsoring numerous fund-raising activities. Although Oak Grove School had advanced its curriculum to the tenth grade by the mid 1940s, it nevertheless closed its doors after the 1959-1960 term following its merger with the Moulton Independent School District.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Local tradition traces Oak Grove School to about 1882, named for the post oaks that shaded its first one-room building on the Wenske family's land. Over the decades it grew from a single teacher to three, added rooms and grades, and even saw its access road improved by New Deal work crews. The school finally closed in 1960 when it merged into the Moulton district.
Why it matters
Rural community schools like Oak Grove were the heart of country life, sustained by the fund-raising and devotion of the families they served.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Witting School
Moulton, TX
When German-speaking immigrants poured into northwestern Lavaca County in the 1870s and 1880s, wealthy commission merchant George Witting became a major landowner and, in 1880, donated an acre for a non-sectarian German-English school. A small frame building went up that year and was replaced by a larger three-room schoolhouse by 1890 as enrollment swelled. Sustained partly by tuition and used for decades as a temporary Lutheran church, the Witting School served as a community hub until it consolidated with other schools in 1969, one of the county's oldest and last to close.
Site of Evergreen School
Shiner, TX
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.
St. Paul's African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
Moulton, TX
After emancipation, AME missionaries began serving the Black community around Moulton, and in 1867 Reverend E. Hammitt became the county's first Black AME minister on a wide circuit. When Moulton was founded in 1887, its founders donated land where the congregation built a modest one-room church, long known locally as Moore's Chapel. The building doubled as the community's African American school after World War I, sustaining faith and education together until the congregation finally closed its doors in 2007.
Stacy School
Hallettsville, TX
As waves of German and Czech immigrants settled Lavaca County near the turn of the 20th century, the county carved out rural school districts to teach their children. The Stacy School — named for landowner J.B. Stacy, who set aside the original site — grew from an 1880s private school into a two-room frame schoolhouse with a stage for plays, a windmill for water, and games of marbles and "mumbly peg" at recess. For most of its 58 years a single teacher handled six grades and about forty students; enrollment peaked at 54 during World War II before rural consolidation closed it in 1954.