Lela School

The Story of the plaque took its later name from a family tie: postmaster Bedford F. Bowers renamed the town Lela, for his wife's sister Lela Smith. By 1903 Story also had a weekly, the Wheeler County Texan, started by T. C. Richardson, a country schoolteacher who later became an agricultural editor and in 1934 sent the legislature the first proposal to organize soil-conservation districts. The paper followed the town's businesses to Shamrock. In 1947 Lela had fifty people, an elementary school, a church and four businesses, and by 1976 its post office was gone.

What the plaque says

Lela School Soon after the establishment of this community along the proposed rail line for the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf railway in 1902, residents called for the creation of a school to serve their children. Both the community and the school were known as Story until the post office opened under the name Lela. Fannie Womble served as the first teacher in the Story (Lela) school, with John Purcell, J. V. Ford and J. T. Close as first trustees. Although the community was founded because of its abundance of good underground water, it did not keep pace with Shamrock (5 mi. E) and by 1920 many of the residents and businesses had moved to Shamrock. About the same time, the long dry creek flooded and the community of Lela, including the school, moved up the hill one-half mile north of its original site. The discovery and production of natural gas brought renewed prosperity to this farming and cattle region in the 1920s. After the Lela School building burned in 1927, civic leaders arranged for the construction of a new brick school building that would be large enough to accommodate the increased population brought on by the economic growth. Although the 1928 brick school building originally housed all grades, the top two grades were discontinued after several years, and Lela students traveled to Shamrock to complete their education. After nearly 90 years, the Lela School district closed in 1992 and was annexed to the Shamrock school district. Its history remains a strong part of the rural heritage of Wheeler County. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tower Station and U-Drop Inn — 5.5 mi
  Shamrock's 1936 Conoco station and cafe at the corner of Route 66 and US-83, sketched in the dirt with a nail, named by a schoolboy and saved by the town.
• Devil's Rope and Old Route 66 Museum — 14 mi
  Barbed wire and the Texas road in McLean's old brassiere factory: the fence that closed the open range, from the salesmen who sold it to the Panhandle ranches it divided.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 14 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.
• Old Mobeetie Jail Museum — 21 mi
  The 1886 stone jail of the Panhandle's first county seat, the buffalo hunters' Hidetown on Sweetwater Creek that ran the courts for fifteen counties before losing its fort, railroad hopes and county seat.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Shamrock — 5.5 mi
• Shamrock's St. Patrick's Day Celebration — 5.5 mi
• Shamrock Methodist Church — 5.5 mi
• Episcopal Church of St. Michael and All Angels — 5.7 mi