Wooster Common School No. 38
Baytown, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1891, Quincy Adams Wooster visited Texas from Iowa. He was so impressed with this area that he sold his farm and moved his family here. With his business partner, Willard D. Crow, Wooster bought thousands of acres along Scott's Bay. He had the town of Wooster surveyed and platted on January 20, 1893. During World War II, the population increased greatly due to the nearby Humble Oil & Refining Company and the Humble Docks. In the 1950s, the City of Baytown annexed Wooster, then still a rural community. Hurricanes Carla (1961) and Alicia (1983), extensive subsidence, and industrial-use property acquisitions have removed most historic resources from Wooster. The Wooster Schoolhouse was built in 1894 on First Street near Market Street Road (later Arbor Street and Bayway Drive) on land donated by Junius Brown. It was designed by Q. A. Wooster and built by Wooster, Brown, and their sons and sons-in-law. Cypress was chosen for the frame and exterior siding and longleaf heart pine for the interior. On April 9, 1895, Harris County Commissioners Court was petitioned to create School District No. 38, to include Scott's Bay and Lynchburg. Q. A. Wooster, Junius Brown, and John Wesley Crow were elected the first trustees. Serving seven grades, the school became part of the Goose Creek school district in 1919. The schoolhouse closed and reopened several times, and was moved in 1937 to the new David G. Burnet Elementary School and used as a classroom, cafeteria, and music room. The building was also used for Sunday School lessons and as a voting place. It closed as a school facility for the last time in 1980 and was moved in 1986 to Republic of Texas Plaza for use as a museum. As the oldest known existing one-room frame schoolhouse in Harris County, it continues to have educational and historical value to the community. (1990, 2012)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Iowa farmer Quincy Adams Wooster was so taken with this area on an 1891 visit that he sold his farm, moved his family, and platted the town of Wooster in 1893. He designed the 1894 schoolhouse himself, built by family hands from cypress and longleaf heart pine, and helped create School District No. 38 the following year. Serving seven grades and later many other community uses, it is the oldest known one-room frame schoolhouse in Harris County and now stands as a museum.
Why it matters
This schoolhouse survives as a rare physical link to the one-room-school era, when a community's first collective act was often to build a place to teach its children.
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Related people
- · Quincy Adams Wooster
- · Willard D. Crow
- · Junius Brown
Themes & tags
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