Historic Smithville school alive with memories - Smithville, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 30° 00.524 W 097° 09.389
14R E 677802 N 3321183
A hundred years ago, Block 16 in Smithville looked much like it does today: an orange brick schoolhouse resting in the center of an acre-and-a-half lot just inside the city.
Waymark Code: WMRZ57
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 08/26/2016
Views: 0
Statesman
Back then its hallways were alive with screaming kids — elementary through high school students learning science, reading, writing and math.
Today, it houses all manners of people, from traveling film makers and artists creating music videos to locals picking guitars on Tuesday nights.
Two weeks ago, a group of more than fifty twenty-something-year-olds rented the space for a reunion turned three-day rave. They danced to electronic music, and before they left, scribbled their signatures in bright pink chalk on one of the school’s original chalkboards in the front room.
It’s been used for public and private events since Don Jellison purchased the old Central School at 400 Gresham Street nearly three years ago and began revamping it. He left the chalkboards there, in addition to painting the walls and ripping up tile to restore the hardwood floors.
For a half million dollars, Jellison bought the school and moved into a single room upstairs. He spent the first year cleaning the place and trying to find a use for it, a process he admits was daunting, so much so he had to throw up his hands and let the building “guide him,” he said.
Jellison said sometimes people stop by to visit, former students feeling nostalgic. They want to look at old records and pictures, or they simply stand in the hallways and remember things.