1866 Esperanza School at Spicewood Springs

In Mary Starr Barkley’s History of Travis County and Austin she notes that schools and churches were the centers of communities during the years of the Texas Republic and early statehood. For northwest Austin one such school was the Esperanza School, a one room log cabin. That log cabin still exists, and is located in Zilker Park, but its original location was near Spicewood Springs. The Texas Historical Commission historical marker in front of the cabin reads [1][2]:

Esperanza School Building. One of earliest one-room rural schoolhouse in Travis County, this cabin was built on property of Richard McKenzie in 1866. It was known as Esperanza School and served children from neighboring farms in the period before public education. In 1893 when a larger Esperanza School was built at another site this original log structure was put to other uses.. (Original site of this cabin was in the NW quadrant of the intersection of Spicewood Springs Rd. and Mopac Blvd.)

The "chain of title" for the property where the school was located goes back to the Mexican title from the State of Coahuila and Texas to Thomas Jefferson Chambers, dated 1835. But by 1866, the year the original log cabin was built, the property belonged to a Richard McKenzie. The building was most likely constructed by the McKenzie family and neighbors from materials at hand as a school building for their children. The architecture was typical log cabin type construction; a one-room structure.

Over the years, the old school building changed owners, locations and purposes. The heirs of McKenzie sold the land and old school building to John Krebs in 1901. Krebs may have used the former school as a smoke house. Sometime before 1940 Krebs moved the old log cabin from its original location at the "top of the hill” overlooking Spicewood Springs to near the intersection of the Spicewood Springs Road and “Balcones Trail" (today’s MoPac Service Road). Changing owners several more times the old building was relocated to yet another spot on Balcones Trail where it served as a dress shop, and again to Wabash Street, just south of West 34th, where it was used again for teaching.

The old school building moved one last time from its location on Wabash Avenue when it was donated to the City of Austin and relocated to Zilker Park's Botanical Garden as an example of an early Travis County pioneer building. The school’s historical marker was approved by the Texas Historical Commission in 1974. An article in the Austin Weekly Statesman in 1888 reporting attendance status on various county schools put “District No. 7 - Spicewood Springs" at 48 children; if you ever visit the cabin in Zilker, peer inside and picture 48 kids and a teacher packed into this one room cabin. A new take on school over crowding.

So where was the school exactly?

The school was originally located near Spicewood Springs, but where exactly? The Esperanza School Building historical marker application gives us the answer.

Mrs. A.L. (Golda) Zinser acquired the property the school was located on in 1940. The previous owner was a Mr. John Krebs. The marker application (approved in 1974, Mrs. Zinser’s house was now on the property) states "Mrs. Zinser says that the Krebs family moved the old log cabin from the top of the hill (near where her house is at 3511 Starline [Drive]) to near the intersection of the Spicewood Springs Road and Balcones Trail."

For the marker application a Mrs. Ed (Helen) Schneider was interviewed, 83 years of age at the time. She recalled the old log cabin building while still on the Krebs' property atop the hill giving the location as "about 150 feet westerly" from the Mrs. Zinser's house.

 

A review of a 1940 aerial photo, the year Mrs. Zinser acquired the property and prior to her house being built, seems to back up the description of the original location, and the Krebs’ move of the building from the hill. The aerial shows a large disturbed area at today’s 3511 Starline Drive, and three small buildings in the northwest corner of the intersection of Spicewood Springs Road and Balcones Trail, today’s southbound MoPac service road; one of those buildings is no doubt the old school.

So, while it lasts, the location of the old school, 3511 Starline Drive, is now a nearly one-acre empty lot providing you an opportunity to drive by and visualize what that spot might have looked like in 1866 when the school opened. And it's for sale! 

Photos

Esperanza School

View inside

Axe marks on hand hewn logs; back looking toward chimney

1940 aerial showing location of school after being moved from original location. One building (bottom right) appears to have a chimney on north side of building. The school?

Footnotes, References 

[1] Quotations and information provided here are from the historic marker application submitted to the Texas Historical Commission; see Historic Marker Application: Esperanza School Building
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth491592/

[2] See more about the historical marker itself here http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=79395