Kelsey School

The school was a joint effort with a friction in it. Researcher James Clyde Vandygriff's 1974 BYU thesis abstract says Kelsey Academy succeeded for years through a partnership between the Church and the State of Texas, though the arrangement was not always tranquil. G. H. Baird's 1946 county history says it ran partly as a church school and partly as a state school, and that for lack of pupils it was discontinued and moved to Gilmer. Baird says the building was kept as a community center.

What the plaque says

Kelsey School In the late 1890s, brothers John and James Edgar settled along Kelsey Creek, and were soon joined by other Latter-Day Saints families from their native Alabama. By 1901, church officials established the area's first branch and school, with Manasseh J. Blackburn as teacher. County commissioners formed Kelsey School District No. 45 in 1907. The school built a two-story brick building in 1911. In the 1920s, smaller nearby schools closed and more students came to Kelsey. However, failed crops and the Great Depression caused the area's population to drop, and the school closed in 1943. Kelsey School is remembered as a unique partnership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the State of Texas, and Upshur County. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Bob Sandlin State Park — 22 mi
  A 1987 state park on a 9,000-acre reservoir, where a Republic of Texas stockade called Fort Sherman stood in 1838 and the Caddo lived from A.D. 800 to 1860, now with fishing piers, trails and cabins.
• Tyler State Park — 22 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Governor Hogg Shrine — 24 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 27 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.

More markers nearby

• Kelsey Mormon Colony — 0.4 mi
• Alex Earp — 2.0 mi
• Harmony I.S.D. — 3.6 mi
• Site of Old Gilmer — 4.9 mi