Mountain Springs School

Before the school there was a spring. The Handbook of Texas says Joe Burch built a home about 1856 beside a hillside spring that gave Mountain Springs its name, and the post office opened in his cabin in 1875. About 1877 Ed Runyon's store took the post office. When the county commissioners set up common-school districts in 1884, the Hodge and Rayzor families gave the land. The village peaked in the 1890s at 150 people with a gristmill, gin and blacksmith, lost its post office in 1904 and fell to 25 residents by the 1930s.

What the plaque says

Mountain Springs School Organized in 1847 in a pioneer woman's home, Mountain Springs School was Cooke County's first school. In 1853, it was moved to a log schoolhouse near this site. In 1884, when it became part of the public school system, this land was deeded for a larger frame structure, called "The Big School." By 1900, the academic year was lengthened to 6 months, beginning after harvest and ending before spring planting. This building, the fourth Mountain Springs School, was erected in 1920. In 1948, low enrollment led to consolidation with Valley View. The old school is now a community center. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Great Hanging Memorial — 11 mi
  Two granite monuments in a Gainesville park, dedicated in 2014, for the Cooke County men the Confederate militia hanged in October 1862 on suspicion of Unionism.
• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 19 mi
  An 1896 courthouse by W. C. Dodson in Denton limestone, pink granite and two sandstones, restored in 2004, now a free county museum on a lawn holding the grave of John B. Denton.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 33 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Tioga United Methodist Church — 7.5 mi
• Primitive Baptist Church of Tioga — 7.6 mi
• City of Pilot Point — 7.7 mi
• Hiram Lodge No. 433, A. F. & A. M. — 9.4 mi