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Cresson

In 1836, the Republic of Texas was fighting for its independence from Mexico.  By 1845, Texas became the 28th state.  In 1861, Texas supported the Confederacy in the War Between the States, and in 1866, Hood County was formed from part of Johnson County.  

After 1836, families were moving to Texas, land was cheap and it offered many a new beginning.  Land grants were given to the soldiers who fought and often were claimed by their families.  David Crockett was awarded land for his service to the Republic.  It is located several miles south of the site of Cresson.  Crockett’s wife, Elizabeth, and two of their children came to Texas to claim the bounty land.  Descendants still live in Hood County today. 

Texas was hard living.  Water, weather, Indians and desperados were always a factor in survival.  By the 1850’s, people were moving to the area now known as Cresson, but then was part of Johnson County.  Mostly farmers and ranchers, these people were looking for land, but needed water to survive.  The earliest settlers found their land on creeks or rivers. As enough people moved to an area, amenities such as schools, churches and eventually towns were needed.

City lots of Cresson were platted between 1887 and 1889 in the Madison Jones and Nancy Smith Surveys.^[1] Parts of Cresson are located in Johnson, Hood, and even Parker Counties.  Mr. Jones granted land for rights-of-way to the Fort Worth and Rio Grande and Gulf Coast and Santa Fe Railroads, both of which were completed in 1887.^[2]  He also grant land for the Cresson Methodist Church in 1894.^[3]

At one time Cresson was a thriving community.  Among the businesses was the

Fidler Hotel, built around 1880.  F.O. Fidler also operated a general store and lumberyard in the 1890’s.  The Post office opened approximately that same time.  Cresson had a lumberyard, three general stores, a livery stable, a hotel, a physician, a wagon maker, a carpenter, and a blacksmith.  In 1892, the “Bibliography of Johnson and Hill Counties” shows Cresson having “six stores, a post office, a school erected in 1890 with two teachers, a lumber yard and a hotel”.   In 1901, Jim Donathan opened his drug store in Cresson; this being the place where the Cresson young men registered for the draft of World War I.^[4]

By 1905 Cresson had two banks, eight general stores, a drug store, a lumberyard, two doctors, a Justice of the Peace, a constable with two deputies, two cotton gins, a saloon and a feed store.^[5]

Schools were very important to any community.  Even the rural areas needed a source of education for their children. Small one-room schools sprang up at Unity, Bear Creek, and McFarland Station.  Gradually these schools closed and the children were sent to the “big town” school in Cresson.

The history of the Cresson School goes back even before 1894.  There was first a small, one-room wood or log school just west of the present school site.  No doubt this was very similar to the schools at Unity, Bear Creek, and McFarland Station.  This old school was torn down in 1890 when a two-story frame building was erected at the present site. 

Madison Jones, the surveyor from Hale County, Alabama granted this site on October 8, 1898 to the trustees of School District No. 31 “for school purposes only”.^[6]  We can assume there was a gentlemen’s agreement between Madison Jones and the trustees between 1890 and 1898 when the official papers were drawn up.  It was four years later when a deed was recorded with the Hood County Records Clerk.^[7] Trustees of the Cresson School District at that time were:  A.G. Bobo, S.B. Kutch, and B.F. Bone.^[8]

The two-story frame was in use from 1890 to 1918.  It was also used as the Baptist Church from 1896 to 1900.   The student body had outgrown this building, so it was torn down in 1918 and replaced by a larger two-story red brick building.  Unfortunately, the red brick building was destroyed by fire on October 21, 1930.^[9]  Children attended classes in the two churches until a new school was built in 1931.^[10]  A bond election was held to add to the insurance money to pay for the new building.^[11]

Outlines of the foundations for the previous schools are still visible as well as the slab for the old coal house.

“Victor B. and Dixie Penuel came to Cresson in September 1927.  He was County Superintendent for Johnson County before coming to Cresson.”^[12] Mr. Penuel was asked to choose a design for the new school.  He chose the yellow brick, Mission style architecture (resembling the Alamo) with four large classrooms and an auditorium in the center of the building.  M. L. Wallace & Co. was the architect from Dallas, Texas.  H. L. Bruce was the contractor from Keene, Texas. 

The 16 foot ceiling in the auditorium stands taller than the classrooms. There are four large windows and double doors opening onto the porch.  There are also small windows around three sides of the upper walls above the roof line of the classrooms and porch.  An elevated stage, lined by real knotty pine wood adorns the north end of the auditorium.  As with most of the buildings in Cresson, the school does not face true north and south or east and west, but rather sits on an angle, aligned with the original railroad tracks.

From the beginning of school, the children had to use out houses, but in the 1940’s, Marjorie Smith, President of the PTA, decided the children should have inside facilities.^[13]  George Glascock, local rancher, and Hughie Long, bullrider and horse trainer, put together a Cutting Horse Competition as a preliminary to the Fort Worth Stock Show.  Glascock contacted the PTA and allowed them to sell drinks and sandwiches to the contestants and spectators to earn money for the school.^[14] This activity continued to support the PTA for years to come.

In the early 1960’s a severe storm blew through Cresson, damaging several buildings.  Lightning struck the school and knocked off the brick façade in the center of the building.  Most of the lightning rods installed during original construction show evidence of having received strikes throughout the years.  The façade has been replaced by the efforts of Hood County Community Service in conjunction with the Cresson Community Organization, Inc., (CCO, Inc), current owner of the building. 

After the Cresson I.S.D. was lost and merged with Granbury, sixth grade classes were taught in the Cresson School building for one semester in 1971, due to overcrowding in the Granbury District.  After the removal of students from the Cresson School, the building sat abandoned and neglected. 

In 1979, the Cresson Community Organization, Inc., (CCO, Inc), was formed and obtained a 99-year lease for the old Cresson School Building from Granbury I.S.D.  The condition of the building was deplorable.  It had been a target of vandals over the years and every one of the 33 large and 25 small windows were broken, with additional damage to the inside walls and floors, as well as water damage from the leaky roof.

Over the years, surplus furniture and equipment from Granbury I.S.D. had been stored at the Cresson Building. James Wann, then Superintendent of Granbury I.S.D. in 1980, auctioned the stored items and split the proceeds between the CCO, Inc. and the band boosters, thus giving seed money for the restoration work needed at the Cresson School Building.

In following years a variety of fund raisers were used to continue the work needed.   Construction trade classes helped in the early years, assisting in the boarding up of broken windows, building outside doors for the rest rooms to replace those that had been torn off, and covering the roof with tarpaper as a stopgap measure until roofing materials could be acquired.^[15]

The original Garland gas range is still usable in the kitchen as is the hand-cranked can opener.   Currently the CCO, Inc. uses the building as a community center.  Meetings, weddings and receptions, reunions, musicals and other community events are held in the Cresson School Building.  The Cresson School Building is a satellite center for the Hood County Senior Citizen’s group and a senior lunch is served in the cafeteria weekly.  It is also a polling place on Election Day.  The Cresson Homecoming is held there every October, along with a Fall Festival.  Funds derived from the events of this festival are used to restore and maintain the historic structure.

1999 became a banner year for both the Cresson School Building and the Cresson Community Organization, Inc.  Granbury I.S.D. decided to sell some of the property that could not be used for school purposes and the possibility that the school building and lot would be purchased by an individual who would not respect the history of the area was all too real.  Growth in Hood County had caused the loss of too many historic sites and Cresson School is one of only three remaining school buildings in the county; the other two are owned privately and in states of total disrepair.  The United States Post Office was in need of a larger facility and contracted to build a new building on part of the lot next to the Cresson School.  Their architect even worked to design a facility that would complement the original school building.

At the time of purchase, contractor,   Rusty Lambert of Lambert and Cullison Investments, Inc. donated the building and remaining lot to the Cresson Community Organization, Inc. thus protecting it and allowing an important piece of Hood County history to forever stand as a reminder of a much different time and place. 

The CCO, Inc has continued restoration projects, fund raisers, and is considering the use of a classroom as a museum representing education in Cresson, Texas in the 1930’s as well as local history.  Use as a community center will continue and everyone can share in the preservation of the Historic Cresson School Building.  Even the newly formed City of Cresson has requested space for their City office.