Jim Ned High School - Warrior Yearbook (Tuscola, TX)

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Mr M C Bnght bu1lt tlus house out of three houses They had an organ and many smgxngs were held here Mr and Mrs Henry Brrght lxved rn the house from 1927 1951 The f1ISI school bu1ld1ng on Buck Creek was a log bu1ld1ng w1th the logs standmg stra1ght up there was one wrndow Later a two stoned school was bu1lt School was held on the f1rst floor and the Masons met on the upper floor The post offrce at Content was called Tokeen Alf Hanscomb a man from Marne was the post master He probably gave the name Tokeen to the post offtce The post 0ff1C6 had a slot for people to ma1l letters after hours When the boys sent comlc valentlnes they would sl1p up rn the dark to mall them so no one would know who sent them At one trme Content had a two stoned hotel a post offrce a blacksrmth shop barber shop drug store a m1ll for gr1nd1ng wluch was powered by a gasolme motor and a gm They bu1lt the rock gm rn 1900 after a gm further west had an explo s1on whlch kllled a man When the rock g1n ceased operatrons the machrnery was moved to Wrngate The Ranger peak was named for the Ranger Troop statroned there to protect the people from the Indrans For recreauon the teachers from the consolldated school were walkrng one Sunday afternoon on the peak They found and dug out the skeleton of an Indlan Hrs knees were on hrs chest and hrs hands were over lus eyes There were no earthly treasures bur1ed w1th htm as was usually the custom of the Indrans One reason for lus pos1t1on may have been because the ground was hard to drg 1n on the peak Two other skele tons were taken out of that area also One young boy was sent to the Ranger Camp to buy some tobacco, when he an'1ved, he found they were sklnning a black bear they had kllled 111 the area . Several doctors 11ved in Content. The Allens, a man and hts wrfe , were both doctors. Dr. Darsey Allen went out on a case one night. She had on a fox neck plece. She stooped over to feed her horse and she lost her neck plece wrthout real1z1ng rt. When she reached down 1n the darkness, she felt the neck P1806 and reacted rn terror because she thought there was a l1ve furry anrmal there. Icy Brrght tntervrewed by Erma Jean Loveland Moro Named for Mountam Named from Moro Mountarn had 1ts f1rst school bu1ld1ng 1n 1887 ten mlles southeast of what was once Moro town It wasn t very well equrpped and just had one room As the commuruty surroundrng rncreased they bu1lt on another room In 1906 a wooden bu1ld1ng was bu1lt and f1nally 1n 1917 a four room br1ck bu1ld1ng was bu1lt cosung S5200 00 Tlus bu1ld1ng was south of the old burldlngs Mtss Alma Harber and Mrs Luctle Green were teachers at th1s trme C The Buffalo Tra11 19225 Moro Baptrst Church Pearre Ranch located near Gu1on The Pearre Ranch 1S srtuated Ln southwest Taylor County on the road from Gu1on to Moro 27 mrles from Ab1lene wlth post offrce at Gu1on Taylor County I own 7 000 acres 1n pasture 200 111 cult1 vauon RBISB wheat oats and Johnson grass for w1n ter feed for my herd of graded Hereford cattle There are four gms w1th1n 8 mrles of my ranch whlch w11l gm about 5000 bales of cotton thrs year Cotton 1S a good money crop rn the West Texas from Our Homes and Country Illustrated publrshed by Chambers and Anderson Ab1lene Texas 1903 Gu1on School was the only one between Buffalo Gap and W1nters Some forty years ago there stood at Lemon s Gap a small one room bu1ld1ng whrch served the double purpose of a church and school Ten years later the d1str1ct was drvrded and the school bu1ld1ng moved to A .L. Iudkrns place wluch 1S now the Ben Mlddleton place. In those days teach ers held second grade certiflcates and recerved 35 or 50 dollars per month for a three or four month term. Eleven years later the school was moved to the Hodges' place and a new one room bu1ld1ng was erected. In 1906 th1s bu1ld1ng was moved to the another srte and a room added for a second teacher. It was named Gu1on for the l1ttle post off1ce nearby. 1922 Buffalo Trarls I .. ' M ,:'.. Y, -' - v ' 4, ' A Q 5 , - e ., ' . x yr e 'I V tx: r -4. I . . 13- Y af -' L 4+-1 ' A A 4 q n I I 1 . . . . . . I . , :-. L. . . . . , . - . . . I I . . . I . I n 1 1 ' A . ' , I ,, . . . n 1 1 v ' l . . . . I . I I , . . .- ' U I I . . . . - - I 1 I . . ' . . . . 1 a , . 5 ' ' ll . . . I 4 1 I , . . . . I 9 Q ' . . . . . . , . . . , .. . , . . . .

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was installed . The building well accommodated the usual sixty students and two teachers, one teacher for primary grades and one teacher for grades 5-7 who also served as principal. The last year for students to attend school at Cedar Gap was 1939 . Children came by contract for a few years until Cedar Gap consolidated with Tuscola. The second oldest Baptist church in Taylor County was Cedar Gap Baptist Church. After preaching by Bro. Stanton from Abilene on June 14, 1884, C.G. Scott was appointed moderator and the following persons went into the organiza- tion of the church: Mr. and Mrs. T.W. Stephen- son, Mr. and Mrs. L.B. Pruit, and Mr. and Mrs. B.F. Graham. B.F. Graham was elected as church clerk. Bro. C .G . Scott was the first pastor of the church. It was decided that the services be held in the school house untzl the members were able to build a church building. A complete record of the church has been kept including minutes indicating early church mem- bers were churched for dancing, gossiping, lying and fighting. Those older minutes were written in long hand in the Spencerian scroll by the late B.F. Graham, Joe Perry, Will White. Carl Stephenson and R. A . Reddell. The church is known for its traditions which included the regular summer revival which always started on Friday night before the first Sunday in August. The date originally was set to conven- ience farmers who had usually laid by their crops by that date . A brush arbor was usually erected for outdoor services. The church building., which still stands, was built in 1897 on a plot of ground donated by Mr. and Mrs. T.W. Kidd, parents of Mr. E.B. Kidd of Cedar Gap. At its peak, the church had a mem- bership of over a hundred . Services were held reg- ularly until June 1, 1969. Present trustees for the church are E.B. Kidd, Leonard Moore, and Mrs. Tom Graham. Mrs. Graham also serves as clerk and treasurer. Mrs. Jeff Davis, Mrs. J.P. Townsend, Mrs. Tom Graham , Della Landers interviewed by Lenez Graham. L '-L' ..... aa ' ' These ladies are early members of the Cedar Gap Baptist Church Martha A. Kidd, Elvia Stephenson, Mrs. J.H. Robin- son. The picture was made in 1937. Bluff Creek Settled in 1877 This is in the Southwestern part of Taylor County in the Bluff Creed valley. The first white settlers came here in 1877 , having little. But their first aim was education for the young. The first school was built in 1881 . The material was not the best: of course, it was shipped from Fort Worth by ox-cart. In 1904, a one-room school was built then added to in 1917 , being fairly equipped with lighting and heating. Schools were usually three months long in session in the summer time. On one instance when all of the surrounding schools had their Literary contests, Bluff Creek was outdone only by Abilene and Merkel. In 1921-22, it won the Silver cup in a spelling con- test with Bradshaw, Guion, Drasco, and Moro: Katy Harrington, now a citizen of Tuscola and the secretary to the mayor, Mrs. Holland, was the representative who won the silver cup . C The Buffalo Trail, 1922b 3. ,4 ra rf, Av , ! Bell from the Content School Content Had a Lime Kiln The M. C. Brights came to Content in 1882. They moved from Tennessee to Western Oregon and then to Texas because of the youngest son's health. He needed a dry climate . Mr. Bright was a farmer, store owner, and county commissioner. His store was built out of the lumber taken from a two-storied hotel. Lumber was used and reused because it had to be brought in from Fort Worth when purchased new. Later the Primitive Baptist Church bought the store building and took it to Lawn to use in their meeting house . Over the years the lumber had accumulated layers of news- papers to cover up t.he boards and to help keep the cold out: there were still pieces of paper pasted on the boards when the Lawn people did their con- struction. In the ceiling over the pulpit, there was a plank with a piece of paper on it: appropriately, it read In God We Trust. South of the Bright home was a lime kiln. A kiln was dug like a well: it had an opening which faced the creek. This opening made a draft to keep the fire going. A layer of wood was placed at the bottom, a layer of limestone rock was placed next, and then a layer of wood. Men kept the kiln hot for several days and nights . When the rocks were taken out of the kiln, they would crumble: and they could be used as mortar to put between logs in buildings.

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Ovalo School Started As Bald Eagle School The early settlers who had bought land and the merchants of old Lawn Ctwo miles north of the present Lawnl realized the need of educational facilities and circulated a petition until they received the required number of signatures requesting a school for their children. The site of the first school building in the Ovalo Rural High School District was deeded to County Judge D . G. Hill and his successors in office by Mr. J.M. Wendelkin and his wife, Sarah M. Wendelkin, for the sum of one dollar. The deed was made and signed in Dallas, Texas, the twenty-fifth day of February 1891: but was not filed for record in the Taylor County Court House until the seventh day of February, 1893. It called for five acres of land taken in a square, out of the southeast corner of the Hood County School Land Survey of four hundred acres. It was located one half mile directly east of Bald Eagle Mountain. Mr. A . B. Britton later acquired ownership of the remaining portion of the Hood County School Land Survey, which gave rise to the impression that he and Mrs. Britton were the donors of the five-acre plot. In 1891 the mountain where Ovalo is now located was named Bald Eagle. On May, 1893, the Commissioners' Court established School Dis- trict number 19, the Bald Eagle School District, out of a part of the Jim Ned District and a part of the Tuscola District. The first school was a one-room , box house , fourteen by sixteen feet. It was furnished with long, home-made pine benches with slanted tops for desks, a blackboard made of twelve-inch pine boards painted black, and a wood stove in the center of the room. A water barrel mounted on a slide to haul drinking water with one tin cup tied on the barrel served as their water fountain. Thirty-five pupils were enrolled the first year. Their teacher was Miss Ella Mills. The first trus- tees were Mr. S.N. Landers, Mr. R.F. Ivey, and Mr. I .R. Landers. When the pupils took all the subjects taught in the school, they quit-no diplo- mas or graduation. Bald Eagle school children had very little ground equipment so they had to play games. Some of the most popular were Wolf Over the River, Red Man's Bluff, Mumble Peg, Marbles, Drop the Handkerchief , Pop the Whip, and Base- ball. Their Saturday night parties were held in the homes and they played Snap and Round Games. In the Round Games they sang and stepped to their music. Children walked to school: some had to walk three or four miles. They had to wear warm clothing such as high-topped shoes, blacked-rib- bed stockings, union suits, and leggins because the boys wore knee pants. They got very warm on some days playing outside and that was when you could smell the sweet aroma from the asafe- tida bags that their mothers put around their necks. Asafetida was to ward off all disease but many of those little bags were lost on the way to school. The string could be broken. Kids were always glad when dinner-time came even if they did have to eat cold food from their buckets of different sizes or the square lunch boxes. The year 1906-07 saw a second room of the same box construction added to the building which already had been enlarged onceg and for the first time an assistant teacher was employed. The year 1908-O9 was the last school in the two-room box house. The teachers were Miss Helen Kesslar, principal, and Miss Lena Tikker, assistant. With the coming of the Abilene Southern Rail- road . a new town came into being. Lots went on sale in 1909 , and in less than twelve months Ovalo had forty-six business houses and distinct industries. Some of these structures were of brick and cement. Two churches were included. The 1909-10 session did not open until January , 1910 . But when it did open, the school was housed in a commodious four-room, two-story brick structure that had just been completed from the proceeds of an S8 , OOO bond issue. This school building stood only a few hundred yards north of Bald Eagle Mountain in the new town of Ovalo , which had sprung up in 1909 on the Abilene Southern Railroad. From this date there have not been fewer than four teachers on the faculty. And the name Bald Eagle School was dropped in favor of Ovalo School. The Ovalo School activities were a carry over from Bald Eagle School except basketball and track events were added. The girls' team wore black sateen bloomers and white middy blouses. The boys' team wore baseball trunks and white