The Looney School

Morgan Looney rented an older school building in 1861, according to a 1946 county history, and ran the school there until 1871. The building burned in 1863; a two-story frame replacement, 60 by 90 feet, opened in 1866 with six classrooms below and an auditorium above. Girls and boys used separate doors, and Looney watched both sides from a raised platform. Rules required Sunday school and banned swearing, gambling, dancing, drinking and horse racing. O. M. Roberts taught law and bookkeeping there, and the Handbook of Texas says he opened a law school in Gilmer in 1868.

What the plaque says

The Looney School During the years of 1860-70 in Gilmer, Morgan H. Looney had a school widely known for high academic standards, attracting many East Texas boarding pupils. Site was 4 blocks to the north. Boys and girls had separate entrances, separate study halls kept by teacher on a platform. Socials were held once a month. People there achieved fame later. O. M. Roberts, a teacher, was governor, Supreme Court chief justice. 3 girls married governors. Charles Culberson, later governor and U. S. Senator, was one of many students who made great achievements. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Bob Sandlin State Park — 24 mi
  A 1987 state park on a 9,000-acre reservoir, where a Republic of Texas stockade called Fort Sherman stood in 1838 and the Caddo lived from A.D. 800 to 1860, now with fishing piers, trails and cabins.
• Daingerfield State Park — 25 mi
  A pine-and-hardwood park built in 1935-39 by a white and a Black Civilian Conservation Corps company, with a dammed lake, Bass Lodge and a 2.4-mile loop trail around the water.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 25 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• Tyler State Park — 26 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Upshur County, C. S. A. — steps away
• Cherokee Trace — steps away
• The Gilmer Mirror — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Gilmer — steps away