Gallatin School

A Stephen F. Austin State University Heritage Center account calls Gallatin ISD the first consolidated school in Cherokee County, in operation from 1903 to 1959. The district voted to consolidate with Rusk as the Class of 1959 graduated. On Sunday, May 29, 2016, former students held a reunion and dedicated the state marker, which the Cherokee County Historical Commission and the Texas Historical Commission sponsored together. Deborah Burkett, who chairs the county commission, spoke on preservation, and Amy Derrington, who has worked to preserve the school's history, welcomed the crowd.

What the plaque says

Gallatin School Three schools operated within the vicinity of Gallatin at various times, before the first school building was constructed in 1910. Due to high enrollment, the three-room building grew to five rooms within a year and required additional faculty. In the summer of 1917, the building burned and school was taught in local churches and Woodman Hall. In 1918, a two-story brick building was erected at the present site with three classrooms upstairs and three classrooms downstairs. In 1940-41, a stone gymnasium was built with the help of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1945, the three upstairs rooms of the old building were torn down, and an auditorium, stage and six classrooms were added. An agricultural building was added in 1946, which was used as a G.I. School after World War II. It was later used by the Homemaking Department. In the summer of 1959, the Gallatin community voted to consolidate their school district with the Rusk Independent School District. Gallatin High School students were bused to Rusk High School. Following the consolidation, the Gallatin School building was used as one of the Rusk elementary schools, teaching the first eight grades. Gallatin School became a place of the past, but serves as a reminder of the community's successful endeavor in providing an education to children of this area. (2015)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 20 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.
• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 27 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 27 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.

More markers nearby

• Dialville — 5.3 mi
• Rusk — 5.5 mi
• Town of Craft — 5.6 mi
• Mountain Home — 5.7 mi