Looking back
West Bay Common School No. 13 was built in Chambers County in 1898 and served as a single, one-room schoolhouse for children in kindergarten through eighth grade until 1936. In the next several decades, the schoolhouse took on a new role as a house and storage space.
Like thousands of schoolhouses throughout history, West Bay seemed destined to be lost to time. However, this changed when League City residents Catharin and Richard Lewis, working with the League City Historical Society, opted to save the building and move it to League City in 1991.
Today, it sits on the same ground as League City’s first fire station and serves as a museum and reminder of the area’s history. Both are run by the League City Historical Society, which took up the task of restoring the schoolhouse more than 30 years ago.
Some context
The ground that West Bay sits on now was home to two other schoolhouses in the 19th and 20th century, Catharin Lewis said. The first, built in 1894, was damaged beyond repair by the 1900 Galveston Hurricane.
The second, built in 1901, was torn down in 1980 due to needing new structural upgrades, she said.
That makes West Bay the third school to sit on the grounds. To bring it to this point took moving it 60 miles from the northern tip of Galveston Bay down southwest, the couple said.
Catherin Lewis said the building had not been occupied for years and had been converted into a house with walls and separate rooms. The walls were torn down and the material from them were repurposed to help with other parts of the restoration, including recreating the raised area where the teacher’s desk sits.
The impact
Today, the schoolhouse offers an opportunity to take a step back into time, giving students and visitors a feel for what schooling in the late 19th century was like, Richard Lewis said.
Desks accurate to the time period, a flag with only 45 stars and a chalkboard with the vocab lesson for the day—along with overhead maps to cover up the answers for when it's time for examinations—are some of what those who visit can see.
Richard Lewis said it was common to have different sections of the class, based on grade level, working on different subjects or topics back in the day.
For example, while some children were up at the teacher’s desk working on reading, other students might be working on spelling. Others might rotate and work on math as well. It was also common to have the older students help out with lessons.
Students on field trips have the opportunity to take part in a lesson reminiscent of schooling from the time period. When students visit, they get to participate in a pen and ink lesson, a math, spelling and history lesson, a reading lesson at the recitation bench, and a mock spelling bee, Catharin Lewis said.
Also of note
Today, there are roughly 900 schoolhouses still in operation in the U.S., Richard Lewis said. In the past, however, there were 10s of thousands.
Many of them still in effect today are in smaller, rural communities that don’t have enough students to justify a larger district or series of schools. Other examples include smaller islands that sit right off coastal cities that can only support one-room schools.
For other more developed areas, most one-room schoolhouses in Texas were consolidated into independent school districts in the '40s, Richard Lewis said. Whereas in the early 20th century students were sparse and spread out, as more development came in, students from all over the area could be transported with new motorized buses, which helped build larger school districts.
"We wanted to preserve the history of early one-room schools," Catharin Lewis said. "And save the history of the schools that once were sitting on this property. ... That was the whole purpose of our museum. To show the history of education throughout the years."
