Site of Lutie School

Lutie stood on former Rocking Chair Ranch land. One of the first settlers, J. H. Young, built his home on the Anderson section, named for John Anderson, the county's first clerk. Mrs. Lutie Templeton, for whom the place was named in 1909, was the wife of the county attorney, R. H. Templeton. A post office opened that year and closed in 1913, after which mail came through Aberdeen and then Wellington. In 1925 Lutie had a church, a two-teacher school, two stores, two garages and a blacksmith, and it reached 125 people by 1941.

What the plaque says

Site of Lutie School The community of Lutie, named for early settler Lutie Gresham Templeton. Traces its history to 1909. Two years previously, local citizens had formed the Pleasant Valley School about one mile northeast of the townsite. Community leaders moved the school to Lutie in 1912, renamed it, and added a room. A third room was added in 1929, and the school continued to serve area children until 1937, when it consolidated with the school in Samnorwood (4 miles northwest). Land where the school was located reverted back to the family of the original donor, John Henry Young, Sr. (1874-1950). (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tower Station and U-Drop Inn — 14 mi
  Shamrock's 1936 Conoco station and cafe at the corner of Route 66 and US-83, sketched in the dirt with a nail, named by a schoolboy and saved by the town.
• Devil's Rope and Old Route 66 Museum — 26 mi
  Barbed wire and the Texas road in McLean's old brassiere factory: the fence that closed the open range, from the salesmen who sold it to the Panhandle ranches it divided.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 26 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.

More markers nearby

• Nicholson School — 3.8 mi
• Rocking Chair "Ranche" (1883-1893) — 4.4 mi
• The Red River Plunge of Bonnie and Clyde — 4.4 mi
• Site of Dozier Schoolhouse — 7.7 mi