Weaver Springs

Weaver Springs is in Mulberry Canyon a half mile south of Farm Road 2035 and twenty miles southeast of Sweetwater on the eastern edge of Nolan County. It is named for two gravity springs in a secluded canyon of limestone mountains and cedar breaks. The springs were named for John Harrison Weaver, the first settler, who arrived in 1880. A small community developed within a four-mile radius of the springs. As many as forty-five families lived in the area from the 1880s until the early 1930s, when a steady decline in population began. The Weaver Springs school-a one-room, clapboard structure at the widest point between the two creeks-was built in 1908. Most residents of the community owned fewer than fifty acres of land and raised cattle, sheep, chickens, and turkeys. During the Great Depression the school lacked sufficient funds to continue; it closed in 1931. Mrs. Alice Reed King, who had attended Weaver Springs School as a child, was the last teacher at the school. Many residents moved to Merkel and Sweetwater seeking employment with government-sponsored programs. Most who moved to town also moved their houses with them. Consequently, only a handful of buildings remain in the area. The Weaver Springs school was sold in the late 1930s as salvage lumber for a house to be built near Nolan. The large limestone blocks that served as the foundation and steps of the schoolhouse can still be seen at the site. In 1988 three families lived in the area known as Weaver Springs. Quarter horses and cattle provided the greatest source of revenue, in addition to recreational hunting of abundant white-tailed deer, quail, and wild turkey.