The Indian Creek Schools
In the Winter of 1936, ten-year-old Leon Teinert had just walked a long mile to school with the cold wind at his back. As he walked across the school yard a pesky female student, just a year younger, grabbed the hat from his head from his blind side. Giggling, she circled around by the school’s well and dropped Leon’s hat into the darkness. Everyone in the school yard stopped … but Leon had been told to never ever hit a girl. Attempts were made to fish the hat out with the well’s rope and bucket, but it was gone. This is just one story from the Indian Creek Public School that served this little community from 1900 to 1947, when it was consolidated with the La Grange Independent School District.
These were the days of school segregation and about a mile to the north, young black students made their way toward the big pine tree in their school yard and into the one-room school building warmed by a wood stove.
Never an organized town, Indian Creek was a little cluster of businesses and homes that sprang up at the intersection of then Texas State Highway 44 and the Winchester Road. Today, they are known as US77 and FM153. Over the years, Indian Creek was the site of a general store/saloon, grocery/ gas station, blacksmith shop, cotton gin, sawmill, cattle dipping vat and the two schools. The area was on the edge of a large loblolly pine forest--much of it old growth. Cotton, the primary cash crop in Texas for over 100 years, was grown in the nearby river and creek bottoms.
The general store, doubling as a saloon, served as the community gathering place. Turkey shoots were a regular event at the Hobratschk Store, where contestants shot at targets … not turkeys. The store also hosted the local “beef club,” where members, as a co-operative, shared beef on the hoof, their labor and steaks. The dipping vat dated back to the days of cattle drives, when South Texas cattle were quarantined for the deadly Texas fever tick.
By the 1950s, the big lumber companies had moved their operations to East Texas, the tiny boll weevil was decimating the local cotton crop, and the cattle fever tick had been eradicated. Without realizing it, the locals became a little less self-reliant; they just went to the store in La Grange when they needed something. But most of all, they lost the thing that held them together as a community, the little oneroom schools by the creek and under the big pine tree were now gone.
The history of Indian Creek is told by some of the area’s old timers as they remember it. The water well still stands at the location of the school by the creek. Unfortunately, the school by the big pine tree would now be in the southbound lanes of the newly widened US Highway 77, currently under construction.
In the 1990s, under the guidance of Judge Ed Janecka, Fayette County placed a small metal sign near the location of many of our known early rural schools. See attached photo of a sign; the years have taken their toll on many. The term “still standing” comes to mind.
Over the next few months, a small team of Fayette County Historical Commission volunteers will be crossing the County looking for any remaining signs. We will stay in the roads’ rightof- way and not go onto your private property. If you see us, wave. If you know the status of a nearby sign or historic school, stop and help us. It will be appreciated. Over the past 188 years, our County has had about 250 of these rural schools. You may know of a school near your community.
Each one has a story to tell.
