Sutherland Springs School Site

Joseph Henry Polley, born in Whitehall, New York, in 1795, came to Texas with Moses Austin in 1820 and became the first sheriff of the Austin colony. In 1847 he moved his family from the Brazos to the Cibolo, partly to keep his often-ill children away from coastal disease. The people he enslaved, twenty by 1861, built his stone house, Whitehall, in the early 1850s, and Robert E. Lee and John B. Hood were among its guests. He sponsored schools in Seguin and Sutherland Springs, which his nine surviving children attended.

What the plaque says

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS SCHOOL SITE The Sutherland Springs Community was founded by Dr. John Sutherland and Joseph H. Polley in the 1850s. Both men were concerned with the need for a school in Sutherland Springs where social institutions had not yet developed. Early schools were built by churches, citizens or organizations. Public education funds were not adequately distributed and educational efforts in Texas remained sporadic through the close of the nineteenth century. In 1857, Dr. Sutherland built a rock building on the Cibolo used as a private academy. In 1871, J.B. Polley deeded to the school trustees of Cibolo Hall and female academy all his right, title and interest in lot #3 block #59. By 1877, the male and female academy opened in the rock schoolhouse. In 1910, a bond election was voted on and adopted to construct a new school. The next year, lot #4 was purchased. In 1934, citizens of district nine voted to incorporate for free school purposes under the name Sutherland Springs Independent School District. A new school was built in 1936 and a gymnasium was added in 1938. On the eve of Christmas holidays, December 19, 1947, fire completely destroyed the school building. After the fire, students finished the school year at the Baptist Church. A two-room building was erected for grades one through six. The district consolidated with Floresville in 1948 and the property was sold in 1953. However, the spirit of small, rural schools lives on through the community and memory. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 24 mi
  The southernmost San Antonio mission and the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the United States, still carrying river water over Sixmile Creek to the fields after nearly three centuries.
• Mission San Juan — 24 mi
  The mission near the river bend where the San Antonio got its name in 1691, with an unfinished church foundation and farm fields still watered by an eighteenth-century acequia.
• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park — 26 mi
  Four working parish churches on the Mission Trail south of downtown, with the visitor center at Mission San Jose, the Queen of the Missions, and the descendants who still worship there.
• Mission Concepción — 28 mi
  A stone church dedicated in 1755 that has never fallen into ruin, its convento ceilings still painted, and the ground where the Texas Revolution's fight for San Antonio began.

More markers nearby

• Sutherland Springs — 0.3 mi
• Pat Higgins Grass Farms — 0.8 mi
• John Reagen Baker — 6.0 mi
• Town Named for Governor F.S. Stockdale — 6.1 mi