Lolaville

Subject: Lolaville Tue 23 Oct 2007, 8:18 pm

Tiny Lolaville was little more than an afterthought for many motorists as they headed northward on Preston Road toward a day of boating, fishing and swimming at Lake Dallas. By the 1970s, all I remember seeing at this spot in the road was a fruit stand bearing a sign announcing the unofficial city limits, and a mobile home (Dolly's?) where an adventurous soul might receive a professional massage.

But Lolaville was established following the Civil War by freedmen and women. Who was Lola, I wonder? Did the residents of this small settlement leave a cemetery which may be visited?

http://bwcpublishing.com/txghost2/TXGHOST.HTM
_________________
The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves

Subject: Re: Lolaville Wed 24 Oct 2007, 4:24 pm

Lolaville ~ no it doesn't ring any bells with me Holly. So if it was in Collin County where exactle was it? It's a pretty name for a town. I can see it being on the coast with people sitting at umbrella tables sipping frozen concoctions. Smile

Subject: Re: Lolaville Wed 24 Oct 2007, 10:51 pm

Madelyn,

I hadn't thought Lolaville for the longest time, and don't believe that anything at all remains of the little settlement now. In fact, it may have been located where the new shopping mall stands today, on the northwest corner of the intersection pf Preston Road (SH 289) and Highway 114. The map linked to below is an especially good one for a topographical image when viewed online, and that is the vicinity which it seems to indicate. The nearest cemetery to Lolaville with which I'm familiar would be the old Baccus one, just to the south.

http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/index.cfm?lat=33.1975&lon=-96.615&scale=250000&zoom=50&type=1&icon=0&searchscope=dom&CFID=3808048&CFTOKEN=90985759&scriptfile=http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/index.cfm&latlontype=DMSry.GetDetail?tab=Y%20

Long link, huh? I surely do need to learn how to make 'tiny' urls Wink

Thanks, Madelyn!

Holly
_________________
The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves

Subject: Re: Lolaville Thu 25 Oct 2007, 5:47 pm

Thank you very much for this information, M C.

Heather M. Brown's,'The One Room School in Collin County, Texas' (1999) lists most of the known schools begun in the county during the nineteenth century, but does not always specify as to their locations (probably because these have been lost to time and memory). The schools given which operated near the later Lolaville were Lebanon (1875; eventually with two rooms); Rock Hill (at Preston Road and that which now bears its name); Rowlett (said to be close to Lebanon and active during the 1860s ... but perhaps further east, by the cemetery?; there also was an Upper Rowlett School); and Swayback (established during the 1850s and sitting twelve miles west of McKinney).

Not all of these schools continued into the twentieth century, when Lola D. Adams would have been teaching. Did she perhaps teach at the Lebanon School or at Rock Hill? I'm not sure where the children from the Baccus community would have attended, or if classes were ever held in the Christian Church which once stood there.

Also, can you recommend a secondary source where more may be read about Lola?

I'm very glad to know who she was! Smile

Thanks again.

Holly
_________________
The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves

Subject: Re: Lolaville Fri 26 Oct 2007, 10:38 pm

Thanks very much, M C.

I had forgotten to check the archives of the Dallas Morning News for any historical reference to Lolaville; should have remembered that Frank X. Tolbert of A C Greene likely would have written of that little spot in the road.

In her book, Heather M. Brown states that the Bethany School was discontinued in the 1930s when school buses and consolidation became the norm. She gives its location as being on the northwest corner of present Custer and Cothes Roads, with Captain R. W. Carpenter donating land for the school in 1876.

Miss Brown also refers to the early Barksdale School. It was established in 1860 and stood about eight miles to the west of old-town Plano. Moved at least once, Barkdale eventually came to rest on the west bank of White Rock Creek .... near the intersection of North Dallas Parkway and Preston Road (very close to the modern Brinker Elementary School).

While a few Collin-County teachers of the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries are listed or referred to in this book, a Lola Adams or Kelsey is not among them, that I yet have seen.

But I believe that another worthy of note (of which all teachers are Smile

) is mentioned within these pages. Though Heather Brown did not state it thus, a schoolmaster of Rowlett Creek during the 1860s *may* have been none other than Joseph Wilson Baines, the grandfather of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Whether or not this is the case you likely know, M C. I read, also, that the first location of the Barksdale School was about a "half mile due west of the Huffman Homestead" (Miss Brown). Would this have been the family home of Ruth Huffman, whom Joseph Baines married in 1869?

Thank you again,

Holly
_________________
The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves

Subject: Re: Lolaville Sat 27 Oct 2007, 8:54 pm

Thank you very much, M C. You certainly have helped to solve a mystery.

In some respects, Lola's life-story reminds me of that of Alla Hubbard Spencer, for whom the endowed school -- once located near Prosper -- was named.

Holly
_________________
The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves