Sweet Home Vocational & Agricultural School..........

[Kelley (Texas)]

This old African American school is located down a lonely stretch of an obscure county road approximately 30 miles east of San Antonio in an area known as Sweet Home, Texas. This school was designed by Booker T. Washington and was built in 1925 for the black children that lived in this area. There were four main classrooms, a kitchen, a library, and two restrooms. Off to the side was a house for the teachers to live in. Some of the subjects taught were cooking, sewing, blacksmithing, carpentry, mattress making, and auto mechanics. It was a fully accredited high school and they competed in sports against other schools in the area. The school closed in 1963.

[attachment 175337 vocationalschooleditone.jpg]

Across the road is the old Sweet Home Baptist Church which is 146 years old. As I was taking pictures of the old church, two older gentlemen approached me and introduced themselves. One of them was the minister for the church. After a few minutes of conversation, I knew that I had hit gold. These two gentlemen had graduated from the Sweet Home Vocational & Agricultural School across the road. Towards the end of the conversation, they gave me directions to the old church cemetery...take the first right, travel down that road until I come to where the tree is sitting in part of the road, then turn right and cross two cattle guards. We exchanged names and the minister is willing to sit down with me and tell me the history of the area. You can feel assured that I will return in a week or two, this area fascinates me.

Please note that the batteries to the camera gave out and I was unable to take very many pictures, but I will be taking a complete set of pictures when I return to Sweet Home. I will be posting a complete story after visiting with the folks from the church, complete with pictures. Kelley (Texas)

 

[Bayrat76]

Great Story Fred. Need to go detect there too. no telling what a person might find around there. Maybe some old tools,or horse shoe's too. Herry up and get back up there. Need to hear more on this place.

 

[Micheal_R]

I am really looking forward to the continuation of this saga.

Fair winds

Micheal

 

[George-CT]

We don't see buildings up here on blocks at all except for trailers. Any footing in this area needs to be 42 inches deep.
Sure looks like and inviting place to metal detect. Look forward to the stories.

 

[Wayne in BC]

The old schools did more for our countries on a per capita basis than the new ones ever will.

 

[Royal]

go to Radio Shack or Walmart and get a little digital recorder. Mine is about the size of a cigarette lighter and just slips in my shirt pocket. Turn it on as you get to the guy and record it. Don't trust your memory. I bought mine to record my mothers early memories. She never had a clue I had it on but I told her later. I got almost 10 hours one three day visit she made up here. What a treasure of the early days that would be lost if we don't save it.

My recorder is solid state and has a built in USB plug that just plugs into my computer and down loads the recordings automaticly

Have fun

 

[Cupajo]

Hi Fred,

I remember seeing signs for Sweet Home in my Texas travels.

Google spits out three different Sweet Homes in Texas and brief descriptions and histories.

Fascinating how communities spring up around an industry and later disappear from existence as if they never were there.

There are lots of those places around the country and especially in Texas.

I'm looking forward to more of your posts,

CJ

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

about the Sweet Home community in Guadalupe County, Texas. This past Saturday I drove back out to the area and took a series of pictures and then explored the immediate area. I noticed that many folks were getting in their last hay crop of the season, lots of fresh baled hay out in the fields, especially round bales.

I have a tendency of working on several things at one time when researching a site, and researching the Sweet Home community is no exception. This past Saturday I think that I have finally found an old ghost town that I have been looking for these past few years. It is located out in a cow pasture, nothing remains of it. I found a few square nails and pieces of glass, but that was all. In fairness, I only looked approximately thirty minutes because my legs were giving me a hard time walking. The rancher was most helpful and gave me additional information, but would not give me permission to metal detect the site at this time. He did give me permission to fish a large stock tank off to the side of the old ghost town site, maybe three hundred yards towards the east. It is an old stock tank and he told me it was loaded with catfish, but folks seldom fish it. As I was leaving, I found out why. His son pulled me aside and told me that the old stock tank was loaded with snakes and that folks would fish there one time and never come back. As I am trying to gather information about the old Sweet Home community site, I am putting this site on hold for the time being. I did take a picture of an old windmill near the ghost town site and figured that you might enjoy seeing it. You will note the brush country at it's best, everything has a thorn or bites. Kelley (Texas)

[attachment 175952 windmill.jpg]

 

[Cupajo]

Home Sweet Home!!

CJ