Young School House and Cemetery

The rail community that drew the school away grew from John P. Young's own arrival in 1847, when he was soon joined by John and Tom Hancock and John Bright. When the railroad came in 1894, a post office opened under the name Como; that name was already taken elsewhere, so the post office and the community became Upton. In 1914 Upton was a Missouri, Kansas and Texas station with seventy people, a gin and a store. The post office closed in 1929, and in the 1930s Upton had three schools, two for Black children and one for White.

What the plaque says

Young School House and Cemetery In 1872, area pioneer John P. Young (1829-1906) donated two acres of his land for a community school and cemetery. The earliest marked grave, that of W. T. Sanders, is dated 1874. Since then, the cemetery has been used primarily by area settlers and their descendants. Shortly after the land was donated, community leaders opened a five-month term school, which was named in honor of John Young. With the help of carpenter Samuel D. Sanford, this schoolhouse was constructed in 1872 of hand-hewn pine logs. Young School closed in 1907 when the rail line was laid through the Upton community (3 mi. N.), and a larger school was established there. Although no longer in use as a schoolhouse, the building has been maintained as a community center and has been the site of worship services for several area congregations. Young School House Baptist Church, whose roots date to 1910, continues to worship at the site. The building has been moved twice to make room for more cemetery plots. Much of the history of this part of Bastrop County revolves around Young School House and Cemetery, each of which has been in use for more than 100 years. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bastrop State Park — 8.4 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 19 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 25 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• McKinney Falls State Park — 30 mi
  Limestone falls on Onion Creek inside Austin, where people camped under a rock overhang for thousands of years and a financier of the Texas Revolution built his stone ranch house.

More markers nearby

• Stephen Scallorn — 1.7 mi
• Smithville — 7.1 mi
• The CCC at Bastrop State Park — 8.3 mi
• Felipe Enrique Neri Baron de Bastrop — 8.4 mi