In the early decades of Kerr County, pioneers in the Guadalupe Valley put their religion into practice, hosting in their home worship officiated by a circuit rider. Worship was not the only community event held in private residences. In the Center Point area, then Zanzenburg, school sessions were also held in family residences.
Funding from the settlers made these hosted irregular school sessions possible. Children of all ages learned together. As teachers were scarce in the area, local men and women with some education served as teachers. Some would become dedicated educators, while others taught at intervals. With writing paper being a scarce commodity, students used slates.
During the winter months heat came from either a pot bellied stove or a fireplace. It was the duty of the older boys to chop and carry in wood, younger boys were tasked with bringing in the kindling. On cold days select boys enjoyed retrieving firewood, as it got them out of school for a while.
In the time of oxen and equestrian drawn carts the first of many irregular school sessions for local ranch and farming children of the Zanzenberg community was taught by a preacher known to history only as Thompson. In 1856-57 Sidney B. Rees held school in his cabin on the south side of the Guadalupe River, about two miles above the settlement. For 1857-58 school for local children was hosted in the cypress log house of John Conner on the north bank of the river. R. H. Cobb, then Montgomery Waddell, and lastly Mr. Montague taught the community’s irregular school session for 1858 and 1859. The school session for these years was held in a picket house near Buck Hamilton’s homestead on the north side of the river.
During the American Civil War period women took the role of teachers as most men in Kerr County went off to serve Texas, either in state or within one of the many southern theaters of operation. As pioneers in the frontier, the men and boys of Kerr County were constantly on the front, as marauding Commanches and bandit raids were a constant threat well up to 1880. To state recruiters, these pioneers were preferred candidates to serve in the growing militias and armies that arouse in Texas.
Most men and young boys of this time would never hesitate to rally to the call for peace and security through service, becoming Texas Rangers or serving as minutemen to defend their community and way of life. Many heads of families in the area were exempt from service for a number of reasons, such as health, protection of their homestead, or through raised militias or minutemen companies the area community, or for other forms of special service at home.
According to a registry list from the Archives Division of the Texas State Library local farmers, Conner and Rees, who had hosted Center Point’s irregular school sessions during the antebellum era, were conscripted into service. Both men survived the war, with Conner dying in 1868, and Rees passing away in 1909.
The community continued to grow since Dr. Charles Ganahl first opened a post office in home on the north side of the river. This community was first called Zanzenburg, in honour of Dr. Ganahl’s ancestral home in the Austrian Tyrol. In 1872 the community was renamed to Center Point, when Dr. G. W. Harwell became the new postmaster after the post office was relocated to the south side of the Guadalupe River.
Seventeen years following the first irregular school session, the first school session in the renamed community of Center Point was held by a proper educator, B.F. Johnson. Johnson, who was a graduate from the Johnson Institute in Austin, would teach local children for two years, from 1873 to 1875. Following Johnson, for 1875 to 1876, Mattie Dobbs, then W. A. Atterburty held school in their farm houses.
Educating the youth of Center Point changed between 1876-1884, as the Center Point Academy was formed as the community’s new school. According to historical accounts, as written by the editor of the newspaper at that time, The Excelsior, the academy’s second annual session opened in October, 1877, with 103 students enrolled. Professor W. Atterbury was the academy’s principal, Atterburty taught students enrolled into the primary and intermediate school, and Dr. Charles Taver served the collegiate department. French, German, Spanish and Italian were taught without extra charge.
Tuition was paid per month to the academy. Tuition to attend primary was $1.50. Tuition for intermediate was $3, and college tuition was $4. According to Gerald Witt, a 1956 graduate of Center Point High School, the exact location of the academy is lost to history. In his research, he found an article in the long gone local newspaper, The Excelsior, which stated that the Center Point Academy was along the bank of the Guadalupe. Witt also discovered other sources that placed the academy’s location on the southwest corner of Kelly and Church Streets.
Records show that for the 1877-1878 school year, one hundred, twenty-three students were enrolled. The academy’s last session was held in the spring of 1884. By the time the area academy dispersed it had gained recognition as one of the leading education centers on the western frontier. That same year, Dr. J. C. Nowlin donated an acre of land south of the river for a school building to be built. A plank schoolhouse was erected in 1885, lumber right down to the cypress shingles were locally sourced, cut at a local saw mill. The site where the frame structure was built was in the current area of today's school campus.
The first teachers in this plank building were Howard Davis and J. W. Moore, a confederate veteran who was familiarly known as the “The General.” On the Ninth of August, 1889, the voters incorporated Center Point for school purposes. A year later on the 27th of April, the first trustees were elected. The school’s first trustees were L. G. Wray, G. C. Vaughn, J. W. Parsons, and Alonzo Rees. In 1913 Center Point voters established and later dissolved their municipality.
Record books from 1885 to 1894 on teacher employment and student enrollment per school year have long been lost. As of today, the earliest record book on file covers the school years 1895 to 1898. According to the record book titled “Teacher and Student Records 1895-1898,” the school employed the following teachers: J. M. Oldham, Josie Vann, Mary Blathewick, and Amanda Bell. During these years 121 enrolled students were taught in the plank schoolhouse. Oldham served as the school’s superintendent, earning $100 per month. The other three teachers received $35 per month for their services .
School continued to be held in the plank building until 1911. Inspired by novel building styles of the Victorian era, Alfred Giles, a local architect who owned 13,000 acres of land, drew up plans for the new Center Point schoolhouse at his San Antonio firm in 1910. Like his previous work, Giles’ design for the schoolhouse took precedence over the novelty of fashion, having designed unpretentious domestic residences for affluent families, county courthouses, and institutional structures all over Texas during the closing decades of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century. Julius V. Oppert of Comfort built the two-story limestone schoolhouse. The stones used by Oppert were locally sourced, cut from the bluff on the banks of Verde Creek and then hauled to the site in wagons pulled by teams of mules.
By September 1, 1911, the plank schoolhouse, which was determined to be inadequate for the present needs of the school, was demolished. The new limestone schoolhouse officially opened its doors for classes in the autumn of 1911. According to records, teachers for the 1911 to 1912 school year were Professor M. O. Britt, Principal; Minnie Irving, first assistant; Professor Britt’s wife, as the teacher for the First and Second grades; and Maud Horne, as the teacher for Third and Fourth grades.
More stone, brick, frame, and metal structures have been built on Nowlin’s gifted acre and adjacent lands over a century, with the latest construction of the culinary arts building officially opening its doors to the students of Center Point in late-2024. In 1938 the cornerstone by the Rising Star Lodge 929 was placed on the stone building built on the northeast corner of the campus; the building has undergone many changes throughout the decades, starting as a gymnasium, then becoming the district’s cafeteria and classroom annex. Today the building built by funds from the Depression era Public Works Administration serves as the small gymnasium again.
In 1956 the then Elementary Campus wing was built behind the two-story limestone building. Since 1994 the wing now serves as the Middle School campus, as the present Elementary Campus complex across First Street began to take shape. In 1979 the present High School brick building and gymnasium was built. This site had served as the district’s football field since 1949. Subsequently, Pirate Stadium was then relocated across the Guadalupe River off Stoneleigh Road.
Since the beginning of the Center Point school system the students have participated in many athletic events. These teams then came to life with the school's production of the yearbook in 1940, as fielded players were first pictured and named in the first annual book. The exact date of when the Center Point athletics team was named the Pirates is unfortunately not known. In 1940 Center Point ISD fielded its first football team. The boys basketball and track and ladies volleyball teams were formed in 1940 as well.
For nine years Pirate athletes wore the school colours maroon and gold, but in 1949 the current era began, as all teams dropped the colours in favour of black and white. The football program was dropped for a few years during the mid-1940s, only to be resurrected again in 1949 as a six-man team. The team was coached by John Burnett. The district’s Alma Mater sung to this day was written for this era by Mr. Brunett’s wife that year too.
The oldest building that still stands today is the limestone schoolhouse finished in 1911. Since then it has hosted the district’s elementary to high school class, then the middle school classes and finally as the administration building. For some time students were also served breakfast and lunch. Though an administration building now, the students of Center Point ISD still have access to the building for testing, hosting and other school related purposes. To this day, students still receive an education in the original limestone schoolhouse, which also serves as an educational and social hub for the Center Point community.
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