Education in Manchaca

Marker Number 16207,  Erected 2009

Location
Jose Antonio Menchaca Elementary School

Size
27" x 42"

Text
The Community of Manchaca, named for a campsite of Tejano Army Officer Jose Antonio Menchaca. First received a post office in 1851.  Early Educational Efforts included an 1870s subscription school in a one-room frame schoolhouse on Onion Creek. The first public school began in the early 1880s and was held in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church near Onion Creek and adjoining Live Oak Cemetery.  This building was also known as "Old Rock Church," and Professor Alfred H. Decherd was the principal.

The building of the International and Great Northern Railroad tracks through Manchaca in 1881 brought an influx of new settlers and increased economic activity.  In 1883 a new public schoolhouse was built immediately east of this site.  The one-story brick building with bell tower was expanded with a second story in the 1910s.  Which added cafeteria and auditorium space.  The school offered seven grades.  And students went to nearby towns such as Buda for high school education.  Separate schools for African American and Mexican American students operated east and northeast of this site, respectively, beginning early in the 20th century.

The second story of the school was deemed unsafe in the 1950s and was removed, and a new wing of classrooms was added in 1957.  Manchaca schools joined with Oak Hill in 1961 to form a rural high school district, and in the 1960s Manchaca schools became fully integrated. The Austin Independent School District annexed the Manchaca-Oak Hill District in 1967.  Just west of the historic school site, in an area previously known as Dodson's Park, a new school, Jose Antonio Menchaca Elementary School, opened in 1976.

The old school across the street was torn down and is now a church