Site of Stony Point School

The plaque says most Stony Point pupils came from Swedish families. The Handbook of Texas traces how Swedes reached Texas: Swante Swenson, who held a plantation in Fort Bend County and was a friend of Sam Houston, took Houston's advice and brought twenty-five relatives and neighbors from Barkeryd parish in Smaland in 1848. The Handbook says Swenson later sold that plantation and its slaves and moved with the group to a ranch east of Austin. Immigration nearly stopped by 1910, and the 1900 census counted 4,344 Swedes in Texas.

What the plaque says

Site of Stony Point School Stony Point School was established in Williamson County by 1891. Children living in the rural area attended the school, which served students from grades one through eight. Most of the students were sons and daughters of families that emigrated from Sweden. For many of the children, attendance at school was their first exposure to English on a regular basis. As students learned and mastered English, they brought the new language home. Thus, the school assisted in breaking the language barrier for the newly arrived Swedes, helping to acclimate them to this land. In addition, the school gave many of the students, who often lived on farms, their only formal education. The school changed locations twice in its years of existence. The first location was in a one-room building on the Noack Ranch nicknamed Noack's Ark. The students affectionately called in Arken, Swedish for ark. The school later moved to locations west and southwest of the original site. In 1942, the school officially closed, as historic Stony Point merged with the Round Rock Independent School District. Still, alumni and teachers have gathered biennially to celebrate the former school. In 1999, a new high school opened in Round Rock, and a committee formed to recommend a name chose Stony Point in honor of the pioneer school. Stony Point High School stands as a modern structure in a growing district, but its name reflects a different time, when a small school served the residents of what was then a rural community. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Round Rock — 5.0 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.
• Inner Space Cavern — 6.1 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• Williamson County Courthouse — 7.3 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Mount Bonnell — 18 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.

More markers nearby

• Major Robert McNutt — 1.5 mi
• Hutto Baptist Church — 2.1 mi
• 1/2 Mile to the Site of Kenney's Fort — 2.5 mi
• Klattenhoff House — 3.4 mi