Site of Swann Hill School

Energy, the community nearest the school, dates to about 1896. The Handbook says the store owners Will and Charlie Baxter reportedly named it for their energetic neighbors. The post office opened about that time with John W. Moore as postmaster and was still operating in 1990. The Handbook counted sixty-seven residents in 1940 and sixty-five in both 1990 and 2000. The community sits on Farm Road 1702, sixteen miles southeast of Comanche, while the school the plaque records stood three miles west of Energy.

What the plaque says

Site of Swann Hill School John Henry Swann deeded this land about 1900 for educational purposes so that area children would not have to travel to Little Valley (3 mi. N) to school. In response, the Little Valley School closed and its building was relocated here. At its peak, Swann Hill offered ten grades of instruction to more than 100 students. In 1929, it was consolidated with the Pettit School (2 mi. W), and the schoolhouse was relocated again to enlarge that institution. Though operating only briefly, Swann Hill School was typical of early rural schools of the period. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hamilton County Courthouse — 19 mi
  A limestone courthouse of 1886-87 on the Hamilton square, built after the county's 1878 courthouse burned, enlarged in the early 1930s and rededicated in 2012 after restoration.
• Dublin Bottling Works — 21 mi
  The Erath County plant that bottled Dr Pepper with cane sugar from 1891 until a 2012 settlement ended its Dr Pepper license, and that still makes its own sodas the same way.

More markers nearby

• Cora — 4.0 mi
• Gustine — 4.0 mi
• Newburg Cemetery — 5.7 mi
• Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church — 9.3 mi