Site of Leatherwood School

The school closed as Crosby County itself was emptying of farm families. The county lost 451 farms in the 1930s, and only 1,288 remained on the eve of World War II. Farm mechanization, which began in the 1930s, was too costly for most small farmers and was a main reason family farms were disappearing by the late 1950s. In the 1930s Leatherwood had been one of eighteen school districts in the county, its building also serving as church and community center; by the 1980s only this marker remained of the community.

What the plaque says

Site of Leatherwood School This area of Crosby County was settled in 1898 by the family and relatives of M. G. Leatherwood. As other families began to arrive, the need for a nearby school became apparent. As a result, the Leatherwood Common School District was created in 1912. The first classes, held in the spring of 1913 in a one-room schoolhouse on land donated by M. G. Leatherwood, were taught by Ellsworth Ham. The location of the school was changed twice before it was moved to this site at the eastern edge of the county. At the height of its growth, Leatherwood School employed three teachers who taught 36 students in a three-room schoolhouse. In 1935 the Zumalt School District consolidated with Leatherwood, but by 1945 only elementary students were being taught here. The final classes at Leatherwood were held in 1949, when the area was made part of the Crosbyton School District. Leatherwood was typical of many early Texas rural schools in that its longevity was influenced by the migration from farms to the city. Although rural schools were closed as farm populations decreased and improved roads and transportation made the cities more accessible, their histories play an important part in the heritage of public education in Texas. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum — 10 mi
  Crosbyton's museum of Blanco Canyon, built in 1958 as a copy of Hank Smith's Rock House, and the place to learn the canyon's 1871 fight between Mackenzie's cavalry and Quanah's Quahadi Comanche.
• Spur-Dickens County Museum — 19 mi
  Dickens County's museum on the main block of Spur, a town born on November 1, 1909, when the first train reached the land a New York syndicate was selling off from the Spur Ranch.
• Motley County Historical Museum — 27 mi
  Matador's museum in the 1928 Traweek Hospital, in the county seat a Scottish-owned ranch created by having its cowboys open one-day businesses to pass a state rule.

More markers nearby

• Near Site of Pansy Baptist Church — steps away
• Marshall Clinton Formby, Jr. — 3.1 mi
• Old Dewey Lake — 6.6 mi
• Two-Buckle Ranch Headquarters, Kentucky Cattle Raising Company — 6.6 mi