Knickerbocker Schools

One newcomer was Dr. Boyd Cornick. The Handbook of Texas says he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis in the summer of 1890, at thirty-four, and spent six months searching West Texas for the right mix of temperature, dryness and elevation. El Paso's water supply seemed uncertain, and Marfa's altitude set off coughing fits. He settled near Knickerbocker, renting a house on the Reynolds, Grinnell and Tweedy Ranch from the Grinnells for $10 a month, and sent for his wife and children. He opened a small practice and wrote on the benefits of warm, dry air, healthy food and rest.

What the plaque says

Education for children in southwestern Tom Green County was available at Knickerbocker Schools as early as 1877. The Baze Subscription School, built by A. P. Baze (1833-1880) on his farm two miles north of Knickerbocker, operated from 1877 to 1899.The one-room schoolhouse had adobe walls, a shingled roof, and a pine floor. Children came on horseback to attend a six-month school term. As the population grew, the county built a frame schoolhouse about 1889 to replace the Baze School. In 1926 a red brick school building with three classrooms, an auditorium, and a central hall replaced the 1889 frame structure. In 1895, at the insistence of Dr. Boyd Cornick (1856-1933), a county school was built primarily for children of Mexican descent. This school was substantially remodeled in the 1930s. The two schools operated separately until 1948 when they were combined. Following the consolidation of area rural schools in 1960, children from the Knickerbocker area traveled by bus to school in Christoval. The red brick Knickerbocker school building became a post office and community center in 1989. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Angelo State Park — 15 mi
  A 7,677-acre park around O.C. Fisher Reservoir on the edge of San Angelo, where four Texas landscapes meet and the state's official longhorn herd grazes beside a bison paddock.
• Concho River Walk — 17 mi
  Four miles of lit trails along the North Concho through downtown San Angelo, rebuilt after voters taxed themselves in 2004, with gardens, sculpture, a river stage and stocked trout.
• Fort Concho National Historic Landmark — 17 mi
  The stone post at the forks of the Concho, headquarters of the Tenth Cavalry from 1875 to 1882, saved by a woman with a museum and now a city-run landmark of 23 original buildings.
• San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts — 17 mi
  A free art museum on the Concho beside Fort Concho, founded in the fort's 1868 quartermaster building and known nationally for its biennial ceramics competition.

More markers nearby

• Knickerbocker — steps away
• Christoval — 9.2 mi
• Sherwood Courthouse — 10 mi
• Irion County — 11 mi