Site of Wesley School

The settlement was called Veseli, Czech for joyous, before English speakers turned it into Wesley. In 1864 the Rev. Josef Opocensky organized what the Handbook of Texas calls the first Czech Protestant and Moravian Brethren congregation in North America, and the place became a supply center by 1866. The Brethren church standing today dates from 1886, and in 1889 Pastor Bohuslav Emil Lacjak painted designs on its interior. Wesley hosted the state convention of Czech Brethren in 1893. The church is on the National Register of Historic Places. By 1959 the population was about sixty.

What the plaque says

Site of Wesley School Czech immigrants came to this area in 1859 and renamed it Wesley community. Professor Josef Masik tutored children in his home. The Bohemian Slovakian Reading Club of Wesley provided the first area school building about 1863. School was taught in the Wesley Brethren Church, a larger facility, beginning in 1866. As the area grew, another structure was required in 1873 and again in 1898. The school relocated to a former store on this site in 1911. It became an eight-grade school in 1927. A new building was erected in 1931 as the population continued to grow, and the school served ten grades in 1949. Enrollment fell as people left rural areas for the city, and in 1953 the school again served eight grades. It was closed and merged with Brenham schools in 1961. The last Wesley School building on this site burned in 1962. (1999)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Round Top and Festival Hill — 12 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 19 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 19 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites — 26 mi
  A shared tomb on the Colorado River bluff for the men of the Dawson fight and the black bean lottery, beside the ruins of a German stonemason's spring-fed brewery.

More markers nearby

• Welcome Lutheran Church — 2.4 mi
• McGregor Cemetery (Scottish Presbyterian Cemetery) — 2.7 mi
• Hackfield Farm — 2.7 mi
• Bednar Family Homestead — 3.4 mi