Swindall School
Van, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the 1880s, the area now known as Van contained a scattered collection of farm houses and a general store. There was no school located close enough for community children to attend regularly. Recognizing the community’s need for a school, a local farmer, George W. Swindall, donated one acre for the establishment of a community school ca. 1880. Three of Swindall’s children later attended the school. The community and the school came to be known as Swindall. Swindall School’s first teacher was T.W. Staton, and the school only employed one teacher at a time through the 1905-1906 school year. Two teachers were employed at one time when husband and wife John N. and Lucy Rhodes were hired in fall 1906. A third teacher was added in 1911. The Van school district was officially established by the county commissioners court in 1903. The district contained twelve and one-fifth square miles and two schools—Swindall and Spring Hill. Although a post office was established in 1894 under the name Van, the school continued to be called Swindall throughout its years of service. By 1915, Swindall School was well into its third decade of use, was in need of repair, and was no longer large enough to accommodate its enrollment. A bond was passed in 1916 to build a larger school approximately halfway between Swindall and Spring Hill Schools, and both were closed at the end of the 1915-1916 school year. The new school opened in fall 1916 and was called Van Common School.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the 1880s the scattered farms around present-day Van had no school within reach, so farmer George W. Swindall donated an acre for a community school around 1880, and both the school and settlement took his name. Beginning with a single teacher, T.W. Staton, it grew to two and then three instructors and became part of the Van school district organized in 1903. By 1916 the aging, crowded building was closed and consolidated with Spring Hill into the new Van Common School.
Why it matters
Swindall School traces the familiar life cycle of the one-room country school — donated land, a lone teacher, steady growth, and eventual consolidation — that educated rural America for generations.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · George W. Swindall
- · T.W. Staton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Van School, 1929-1947
Van, TX
The 1929 discovery of the Van oil field swelled the local school from a five-room country building into a modern campus within a few years. While Depression- and war-era districts elsewhere slashed budgets, oil revenues let Van expand rapidly—enrollment leapt from 90 students in 1929 to 611 the next year—adding brick elementary and high schools, a gymnasium, buses, an athletic park, and a teachers' home. The Pure Oil Company aided the boom with free water and gas and a cash donation, and building continued through World War II.
Van Common School
Van, TX
Van Common School was formed in 1916 by merging the Swindall and Spring Hill schools, with neighbors hauling 114 wagonloads of building materials thirteen miles from the Grand Saline railhead to hold down costs. It opened with 95 students and four teachers and served the rural community until fire destroyed it in 1928; residents quickly funded and rebuilt on the same site. Then, in October 1929, the discovery of oil less than a mile away transformed the district and the whole community almost overnight.
Alamo Institute
Van Zandt County, TX
In 1890, when Van Zandt County had scores of common schools but no institution of higher learning, community leaders met and agreed to found Alamo Institute, taking over control of an existing school for the purpose. Its main building was ready for the fall term, and within a few years the campus grew to a pair of two-story buildings offering history, Latin, science, music, and voice. Though the institute closed before 1911, its graduates included a man who went on to serve as a state and U.S. legislator.
Stanger Springs Church
Ben Wheeler, TX
Founded in 1875 with 27 charter members out of the Cumberland Presbyterian tradition, this rural church began in a simple building of pine and sweetgum planks on land owned by the Stanger family, who also hosted a nearby school. Around the turn of the century local Methodists began worshiping here too, and the two denominations shared resources so fully that many families claimed members of both for over a century. A new brick church rose in 1956, and the congregation continues today as a non-denominational community church.