Sexton Community

Sexton Community was a widely dispersed rural school community just east of the Colorado River and seven miles southwest of Bay City in central Matagorda County. The area reportedly was settled in the early 1800s and sometime before 1896 had a one-room school, located near Big Boggy Creek and called the Franz school, probably after local settler Conrad Franz. The school was also used for church services and was eventually destroyed by a hurricane. After Manley Sexton in 1896 deeded land to build a new school, local inhabitants constructed a two-room building, a water well, and an open shed for picnics. The Sexton school served children from a wide area, including the nearby Savage Ranch, and hosted church services about once a month by preachers of many different denominations. In 1904 the Sexton school reported eighteen White students. By 1920 there was a stop called Sexton on the Cane Belt Railroad, which had built through the area around 1901. Though a Sexton school for White students was listed in county school records as late as 1928, by 1937 the Sexton common school district no. 1 was composed of two Black schools, called Wadsworth Ranch and LeTulle Farm. The latter ordinarily served seven grades and may have been near the site of Sexton Community. By 1951 the Sexton common school district had been consolidated with the Bay City Independent School District, and during the early 1960s the school property reverted to the widow of Manley Sexton, Jr. She used the old school building to construct her home in Bay City. No further information is available on Sexton School Community, which is not labeled on the 1989 county highway map.