Site of Plunkett School

The school stood in the community of Pleasant Grove, which the Handbook of Texas says was first settled in the 1870s by the Palmer, Gaddy, Pogue, Middleton, Bailey, Lackey, Beck and Collins families. A Baptist church went up in 1890, and by 1900 two schools were operating. In 1905 the white school enrolled fifty-six pupils and the Black school thirty-eight. By the mid-1960s only the cemetery and a few houses remained; the burial ground is also listed as Plunkett Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Site of Plunkett School The Hopkins County Commissioners Court established 32 school districts in 1867. District No. 30 became known as Plunkett School in 1903 when a new schoolhouse was built at this site and named for its builder, James W. Plunkett (1829-1914). W. A. Smith, P. B. and Lizzie Wise, and O. D. and Ollie Gillis donated land for the school. The schoolhouse also served as a meeting place for a Cumberland Presbyterian Church and a non-denominational congregation. Due to declining enrollment, the school closed in 1945 and the building was razed. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cooper Lake State Park — 16 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 17 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.

More markers nearby

• Cumby — 2.8 mi
• Mt. Zion Churches and Cemetery — 5.1 mi
• Oakland Cumberland Presbyterian Church — 5.4 mi
• Stewart Cemetery — 5.8 mi