The Wooster Schoolhouse by Kyle Graham

The Wooster Common School, or Wooster School No. 38, was built in 1894 by Quincy A. Wooster on land donated by Junius Brown in a community that used to be called Wooster.  Believed to be the oldest existing one-room frame schoolhouse in Harris County, it was built at the corner of what is now Arbor Street and Bayway Drive. It now stands, on North Main Street where it was relocated in 1986, commemorated with a plaque that surmises the building's history and the beautiful trees that encircle a statue. The school as little as it was, was a source of pride for Wooster. The School educate kids from first to seventh grade and a meetinghouse for the community. Thing like Christmas festivities, Easter egg hunts, and picnics were held on the grounds. The school has been closed, reopened, and moved many times in its long history that spans over a hundred years.

The Wooster Schoolhouse

Though I vaguely remember my first visit to the schoolhouse when I was in elementary school, it holds a very big part in my heart. Even back then I could appreciate the place that educated so many children throughout the years, with wooden desk, a huge black board, and wood furnace that would warm the building during the cold winters, it really made me feel that I was student in late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Even with that very nostalgic memory I have a fresher one in my mind of when I took my high school graduation pictures on the grounds. On that warm spring Saturday after it had rained the day before, walking round the schoolhouse and the 1910 Brown-McKay House at the Republic of Texas Plaza Park. I grew this great attachment to the building because it one of the few places that have good memories of Baytown.
Built in 1894, the Wooster Common School No. 38 is thought to be the oldest one-room schoolhouse in Harris County. The Wooster Common School was planned by Quincy A. Wooster and built on land that was donated by Junius Brown in the small community. Mr. Wooster and Mr. Brown were prominent citizens in Monona County, Iowa before they packed up and moved to Texas. Before moving to Texas both men were involved in community service and education, and as the community became larger they decided to build a school. What was meant to teach children from first to seventh grade, it became a hub for the community as various socials were held. Events like “box suppers, Christmas festivities, Easter egg hunts, and picnics on the grounds” (Wooster School No. 38). In a short time this little schoolhouse became the heart of a community where plays performed by the children were attended by all.

            The schoolhouse has been closed and reopened many times in its years. After being consolidated with Goose Creek, the schoolhouse was closed in 1922 but reopened in 1925 to teach first and second graders. It was once again closed when the David G. Burnet Elementary School opened in 1930. But once again the Wooster Common School rose from the ashes in 1937 to house the fifth grade due to overcrowding at David G. Burnet Elementary. After a short stint of holding classes, the schoolhouse was converted into a lunchroom at Burnet until 1952 when a new cafeteria was completed. Yet the Wooster Schoolhouse still lived on as a music room for Burnet until the elementary was finally closed in 1970. Though not being used for teaching the schoolhouse was still used as the Special Education Department moved in to occupy Burnet, and served as an education faculty for ten years. In 1986, the schoolhouse was moved to where it now sits at the Republic of Texas Plaza and is still used today as a living history museum.

As I sit here about to wrap up this writing process, I cannot help but think back to the beginning of this assignment. Where I was trying to think of something in Baytown that had a significant meaning to me personally. Remembering all the good and bad moments of my life that have happened to me in this city, there were only a few places that I could write meaningfully about. Of those few I choose the Wooster Schoolhouse as the one thing that represents Baytown to me. This school that was built in 1894 by two men from Iowa, who set out to better the community just because they felt it was right. The place that I visited as a nine-year-old third grader, who was taught what it was like to be a student way back in the nineteenth century. I tried to envision myself as one of those students with his pale full of food for lunch, I would sit down at the wooden desk in the one room building made out of cypress wood, as learned how to add, subtract, read, and write. Then coming back to the schoolhouse as senior in high school to take my graduation pictures on that spring day after it had recently rained. Taking pictures by the front and back of the school and by the trees of the Republic of Texas Plaza, where the schoolhouse now sits. I read the plaque that sits in front of the school that described the history of the school, in this picturesque scene of beautiful trees with a statue of some guy that I cannot name, but he must have been important to get a statue of his likeness, and walk off into the sunset thinking of all good that this building has not only done for me but others throughout it’s years.

"Wooster School No. 38." N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.                                                                                        <http://www.baytownhistory.org/images/Wooster_School_Brochure-NEW.pdf>.