Nash Public School

The Handbook of Texas explains the Nash name: the community formed in the early 1880s around a general store opened by Benjamin Reid and was named for N. J. Nash, a county attorney. A Nash post office branch ran from 1883 to 1903. Through the twentieth century Nash remained a center for area farmers, with about 75 people in 1941 and around 125 in 1968. The plaque says the settlement was earlier known as Garden Valley and was renamed once the post office opened; the Handbook does not mention that earlier name.

What the plaque says

Nash Public School In 1873 pioneer settler Thomas Alexander Williams (1827-1900) brought his family to this area, which was known as Garden Valley. Soon after his arrival, he directed the establishment of a school for the community. Classes were conducted at this site, originally part of Williams' farm. Renamed after the Nash post office opened in 1883, the public school closed in 1938 and students were transferred to nearby districts. The existing two-story frame building, which served as the second schoolhouse, in now used as a community center. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 8.5 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 24 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Hill County Courthouse — 26 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.

More markers nearby

• Chambers' Creek — 3.8 mi
• Site of the Plantation Home of Edward H. Tarrant — 3.8 mi
• Avalon Missionary Baptist Church — 4.3 mi
• Sand Lake — 4.9 mi