Stacy School
Hallettsville, Lavaca County, Texas
Marker Inscription
STACY SCHOOL NEAR THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY, LARGE NUMBERS OF GERMAN AND CZECH IMMIGRANTS SETTLED IN LAVACA COUNTY. TO EDUCATE THE INFLUX OF CHILDREN, THE COUNTY CREATED NUMEROUS RURAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS. IN THE 1880s, A SMALL, PRIVATE SCHOOL KNOWN AS THE STACY SCHOOL EDUCATED THE CHILDREN OF LAVACA COUNTY EARLY PIONEERS. WHEN THE LAVACA COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT CREATED THE NEW STACY SCHOOL DISTRICT #22 IN 1895, THE NAME WAS KEPT BECAUSE OF THE CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE RURAL SCHOOL HOUSE. BOTH SCHOOLS WERE NAMED AFTER PROMINENT LOCAL LANDOWNER, J.B. STACY, WHO HAD RESERVED LAND FOR THE ORIGINAL SCHOOL SITE. THE STACY DISTRICT ACQUIRED ADDITIONAL LAND IN 1900 FROM H. UMMELMANN AND IN 1912 FROM F. AND ANNA KOENNING. THE 1895 STACY SCHOOL BUILDING WAS A TWO-ROOM WOOD FRAME SCHOOL HOUSE WITH A SMALL STAGE FOR SCHOOL PLAYS AND PROGRAMS. THE SCHOOL GROUNDS INCLUDED A WINDMILL AND CISTERN FOR WATER, OUTHOUSES AND A TEACHER’S HOUSE CONSTRUCTED SOMETIME BETWEEN 1912 AND 1926. BASEBALL, VOLLEYBALL, MARBLES, “MUMBLY PEG” AND DARE BASE WERE POPULAR GAMES FOR THE STUDENTS. FOR THE FIRST THIRTY YEARS, THE SCHOOL HAD ONE TEACHER FOR SIX GRADES WITH AN AVERAGE OF FORTY STUDENTS. DUE TO LARGE ENROLLMENTS, THE SCHOOL EXPANDED TO EIGHT GRADES AND TWO TEACHERS. DURING WORLD WAR II, ATTENDANCE PEAKED WITH 54 STUDENTS IN 1943. BY THE LATE 1940s, RURAL EDUCATION WAS IN DECLINE. IN 1954, THE STACY SCHOOL DISTRICT #22 CONSOLIDATED WITH THE WITTING DISTRICT #13, ENDING 58 YEARS OF OPERATION AS A FOCAL POINT OF RURAL EDUCATION IN LAVACA COUNTY. THE TEACHER’S HOUSE WAS LATER REMODELED AND IS THE ONLY REMAINING STRUCTURE. (2012)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The one- and two-room country school was the heart of immigrant rural communities across America, and Stacy's long run and quiet closing trace the rise and decline of that whole way of learning.
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Related people
- · J.B. Stacy
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.
Brown School
Hallettsville, TX
When Benedict Brown deeded land in 1894 for a public school in the tiny farming community of St. Mary's, he joined a county that already scattered some 85 small schools across its farms. The first one-room schoolhouse was built from lumber hauled by wagon from Flatonia, furnished with rough benches and hand-held slates, with drinking water carried in daily from a neighbor's farm. For the German and Czech immigrant families nearby, this modest room was a fierce commitment to their children's education, and the school grew steadily until it consolidated away in 1958.
Vysehrad School
Hallettsville, TX
Established in 1887, Vysehrad School took its name—meaning "high castle"—from the Czech heritage of the farming families who settled Lavaca County. Frank Jakubik taught the first classes before the original building burned in 1905 and was replaced by a two-room schoolhouse. Through decades of growth and consolidation with neighboring schools, Vysehrad endured as an independent district serving more than thirty square miles.
Site of Breslau School
Halletsville, TX
German and Czech immigrants settling here in the 1860s and 1870s grew cotton and named their community Breslau for the Prussian city, building a school on land Fritz Ladewig donated in 1872. Henry Weller later gave an acre for a separate school for the area's African American residents, and by 1900 Breslau boasted stores, churches, a blacksmith, and a dance hall. Both schools eventually closed with consolidation, the African American school in 1955 and the main Breslau School in 1963.