Ridge School - Ridge, TX
N 31° 28.846 W 098° 47.710
14R E 519455 N 3482902
The old Ridge School stands neglected at the northwest corner of FM 574 and 573 a bit over ten miles southwest of Mullin, TX.
Waymark Code: WM15J66
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/10/2022
Views: 4
A 2008 Texas Historical Marker near the highway provides some history of Ridge and several other rural communities that are still with us out in western Mills County:
Pioneers migrated to western Mills County to take advantage of the area's rich soil and ample water supply. The community of Regency, (originally Hannah Valley) received a post office in 1889. Today, few vestiges of Regency remain. Other area residents organized the Ebony community (originally Buffalo) in 1879. Regency and Ebony had churches, schools and other institutions. The Ridge community (originally Cold Springs) formed in 1888. The Ridge school building, built in 1931, was later used as a community center. During World War II, the U.S. Government purchased land in the region to form Camp Bowie. The towns declined when many residents did not return following the war.
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The Handbook of Texas Online provides a little bit more, some of it overlapping:
Ridge, in an area once known as Cold Springs, is at the intersection of Farm Roads 573 and 574, fifteen miles west of Goldthwaite in far western Mills County. The community was settled in the early 1890s and named when W. D. Aldridge secured a post office in his store and named it the last syllable of his own name. After 1915 the post office was replaced by rural delivery from Mullin. Maps of 1936 indicate a school district. Ridge had a church and cemetery in 1990. In 2000 the population was twenty-five.
Besides this, there are plenty of photos of this old 1931 schoolhouse, but not much else. The doors are chained shut, the paint is peeling, and there aren't any signs of life inside.