West Texas students have a unique opportunity to experience a day in a
1925 school, thanks to a special program at Buffalo Gap Historic Village.
The program utilizes the historic Cottonwood School to recreate a class
using the 1925 curriculum, allowing students to get a taste of what their
predecessors in the 1920s experienced. To find out more about area schools
at that time, visit the Buffalo Trail year book from 1922.
The initiative, begun in April of 2003, is part of an expanding living
history program being developed at the Village. The Village has created
a program that highlights a 1925 school day in rural West Texas using the
period school and furnishings to show how classes have changed from when
students’ great grandparents went to school.
The Cottonwood Flats School was originally located in Scurry County. The
present building was built in the 1930s and was moved to Buffalo Gap Historic
Village in 1989. The school is a two-room facility, where grades
one through seven were taught. There are no calculators or computers
at this school — just slate boards, wood pencils, ink pens, McGuffey Readers,
and Barker and Randsdell’s Texas History. Students get a taste of penmanship, reading, spelling, and, of
course, Texas history. “They will have to get their minds out of
the 21st Century,” remarks one staff member. “Remember, when they are attending
this school, Calvin Coolidge is President and Ma Ferguson just became the
first woman governor of Texas.”
The overall interpretive theme of the Village tells the last fifty years
of the frontier in West Texas, starting in 1875. The Village is broken
into three areas: The Law comes to the frontier in the earliest area; then
1905 and the changes made by railroads; followed by 1925 when banking,
education, and the automobile really ended the frontier. Most historical
sites depict the typical one-room schoolhouse of the 19th century, but
the Village chose 1925 to highlight the great changes that took place after
World War I. There are airplanes, radios, automobiles, advances in
farming, and Texas’ first woman governor, while at the same time the Scopes Monkey Trial is going on.
The program is available by reservation Monday through Friday and is limited to one class at a time. A teacher or an adult escort is encouraged to interpret the role of a 1925 school teacher and present the school program, which is currently available for kindergarten through the 7th grade. The program is available morning and afternoon, and, when coupled with a sound wand tour of the Village, makes for a fun, enjoyable day. Click here to view the class schedule.
Buffalo Gap Historic Village is an educational facility of the Grady McWhiney
Research Foundation. For more information about the school program, call
the Village at (325) 572-3365.
The initiative, begun in April of 2003, is part of an expanding living
history program being developed at the Village. The Village has created
a program that highlights a 1925 school day in rural West Texas using the
period school and furnishings to show how classes have changed from when
students’ great grandparents went to school.
The overall interpretive theme of the Village tells the last fifty years
of the frontier in West Texas, starting in 1875. The Village is broken
into three areas: The Law comes to the frontier in the earliest area; then
1905 and the changes made by railroads; followed by 1925 when banking,
education, and the automobile really ended the frontier. Most historical
sites depict the typical one-room schoolhouse of the 19th century, but
the Village chose 1925 to highlight the great changes that took place after
World War I. There are airplanes, radios, automobiles, advances in
farming, and Texas’ first woman governor, while at the same time the 
The program is available by reservation Monday through Friday and is limited to one class at a time. A teacher or an adult escort is encouraged to interpret the role of a 1925 school teacher and present the school program, which is currently available for kindergarten through the 7th grade. The program is available morning and afternoon, and, when coupled with a 