Site of First Public School in Bryan

The plaque names Percy V. Pennybacker as the first principal. His wife went on to a national career. Anna J. Hardwicke married him in 1884, and he died in 1899. She wrote A New History of Texas in 1888, a textbook that stayed in Texas classrooms for forty years. She served as president of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs from 1901 to 1903 and later as president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, from 1912 to 1916.

What the plaque says

Site of First Public School in Bryan At the polls on Oct. 29, 1877, the City of Bryan voted to establish a free public graded school--a very progressive step in an era of private schools. Interested citizens immediately bought and donated this block for the site. Financial help came from the George Peabody Foundation, a philanthropic agency devoted to education in the post-Civil War South. Cornerstone was laid in 1879. The first session opened in the fall of 1880 with noted East Texas educator Percy V. Pennybacker (1860-99) as principal. There were five other teachers and seven grades. Top floor of the 3-story brick building was the auditorium, used for chapel, calisthenics, and other programs. Dormer windows were set into the roof. Classrooms were on first and second floors; heating was by wood-burning stoves throughout the building. The schoolyard had a boys' and a girls' side. On each side there was an arbor with benches and tables where pupils ate lunches brought from home. A cistern with tin cups chained to its rim provided water. Outmoded by 1919, the old "Graded" (or "East Side") School became an adjunct to a new structure built that year, and housed gymnasium, cafeteria, and shop department. It was razed in 1949. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 5.1 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 24 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Navasota — 26 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 26 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• First Methodist Church of Bryan — 0.2 mi
• First Baptist Church, Bryan, Texas — 0.3 mi
• St. Joseph Catholic Church — 0.3 mi
• St. Joseph School — 0.3 mi