Marble Falls School Building

Johnson laid his plans for the university in February 1890, and J. A. Ramsdell was its first president. The money for the main building and a boys' dormitory was borrowed from S. A. Posey and the mining and improvement company, and the school never paid its way. After the sheriff's sale the property passed to the Marble Falls Land and Power Company, and the common school district rented it for $100 a year as the tuition-based Marble Falls Academy. When the academy's funds ran out, the public schools bought it on May 16, 1908.

What the plaque says

Marble Falls School Building Adam R. Johnson donated land at this site for construction of the present two-story granite building. Completed in 1891, it originally housed the Marble Falls Alliance University. Near Backbone Creek, east of this main building, a wooden boarding house was built for the students. The property was sold later in 1891 at a sheriff's sale, but continued to be leased for use as a tuition school. In 1908 the local voters chose to buy the structure, and it has been used for classes by the Marble Falls School District since that date. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 8.0 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 11 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.
• Inks Lake State Park — 12 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 13 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.

More markers nearby

• St. Frederick Baptist Church — 0.6 mi
• Marble Falls Depot — 0.9 mi
• Michel's Drug Store — 0.9 mi
• Granite Mountain — 1.0 mi