Samuel W. Houston Builds A School

After receiving his educational training at a number of institutions in the East, Samuel Walker Houston returned to Huntsville about 1900 to establish a school in the Galilee Community.  In this account by Scott Johnson, one of Houston’s first students, we learn about the challenges Houston faced as he prepared to establish the school.

 “Samuel Walker Houston had just come in to take charge of the schools here in Huntsville and Walker County.  He went out to look the school building over and he saw a little building there, about a 10 x 14 box house.  It was old and dilapidated and he told the trustees he wouldn’t teach in it.  To put it like he said about that old school building, he said, ‘You could tell the time of day by looking up through the roof, and you could tell which way the wind was blowing by the cracks in the house, and you could work your garden through the floor, the house was so bad.  So, he rented the Methodist Church…”