Site of Wheeler Springs School
Crockett, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Wheeler Springs community was shaped in part by its school, which began on land donated in 1905 by French Taylor. The Houston County school board designated it Common School District No. 76 in 1906. Millie Denby and Lula (Denby) Dailey were the first teachers. A house moved to the site in 1930 served as a canning kitchen and cafeteria, and a 1932 log cabin provided space for meetings and quilting groups. In 1948, students began attending an area high school; Mose Dailey was their first bus driver. The county razed the 1925 schoolhouse in 1959, following consolidation, but the other buildings served the community for many years. (2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Wheeler Springs community took shape around a school begun on land donated in 1905 by French Taylor, formally designated Common School District No. 76 in 1906. Millie Denby and Lula Dailey were its first teachers, and over the years added buildings served as a canning kitchen, cafeteria, and space for meetings and quilting. Students shifted to an area high school in 1948, and the county razed the 1925 schoolhouse in 1959 after consolidation.
Why it matters
The little school shows how rural communities built their identity around a shared schoolhouse before mid-century consolidation reshaped country education.
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Related people
- · French Taylor
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lula Demby Dailey
Crockett, TX
Born in the Wheeler Springs community in 1878, Lula Demby earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Prairie View College and came home to teach, becoming principal of the two-room, eight-grade Wheeler Springs School. She worked tirelessly to widen her students' opportunities and, beyond the classroom, helped her community build a canning kitchen, a garden, and a school cafeteria. She lived to ninety-eight and was buried in the family cemetery.
Wheeler Springs Community
Crockett, TX
Settlement here began in 1835 when Joshua J. Hall founded a community along the Trinity River. After the Civil War, formerly enslaved people from the Hall family and other freed African Americans put down roots in this area, building a community around springs on land donated by French Taylor. A Baptist church and schoolhouse rose near the springs in 1905, followed by a new school and a cannery in the 1920s; though the school closed in 1959, the church and civic life endured.
Cedar Branch Community School
Grapeland, TX
Schooling at Cedar Branch dates to at least 1888, and in 1895 the local church donated its old sanctuary to serve as a schoolhouse. By 1911 the settlement was its own common-school district, and a two-room school later rose on this site with help from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, the philanthropy famous for financing schools for African-American children across the rural South. The school anchored the community until it consolidated with Grapeland in 1952.
Cedar Branch Community and Church
Houston County, TX
Cedar Branch grew from an extraordinary act at the close of slavery: a planter couple deeded parcels of their own cotton plantation to each of their former slaves, who built a community on the land. The freedmen organized a church in 1862 and raised a sanctuary in 1864, and by 1888 a school met in the church building—the church remaining the community's heart to this day.