ROCK BLUFF

ROCK BLUFF SCHOOL

The first Rock Bluff school was a log structure located on the Sabano Creek just below the cemetery.  The building had a hewn slab door and shutter-board windows with no glass. Students sat on split log benches. 

   Initially school was held from June to the last of August. Teacher were paid $12 a month in any form they could get.  Three of the earliest known teachers included Mrs. Shannon, W. L. Hardgrove, and Bill Croft.

    After the log school burned the school shifted to what had been a home.  It served as the school for about  ten years before a new school was on the corner of the H.F. Skaggs farm.  That school was about a mile and a half away from the location of the log school but still close enough for the children to walk to school.  The building was large enough to be a two room school when a petition was in place.  Rock Bluff consolidated into Duster in 1924 and Duster acquired three buses to transport the children.    

  Wags said they were going to have to kill somebody in order to start a cemetery.  Then, a man by the name of Walker (probably S.B. Walker who died March 8, 1878) got on a wild horse which threw him .  He was dragged him to his death and was the first person buried in the Rock Bluff Cemetery.

   The Rock Bluff Baptist Church was organized on Saturday, December 6, 1879.  Elders J.M. Strickland and H.F. Reynolds met with the following area residents: Jason Clark, N.W Broughton, Ed T. Broughton, J.W. Broughton and Flora Broughton, M.C. and Lucinda Reese, W.J. Skaggs, W.P. Smith, Lewis and Mary Howard, Melinda Lewis, Mrs. F.J. Skaggs, and Mrs. M. J. Smith who became the organizing members.  Reynolds was chosen moderator and N.W. Broughton, clerk pro tem.

   The first known pastor was Brother R.S. Underwood.  The first church clerk was J.W. Broughton.  H. Frank Skaggs who was born in Johnson County but moved to the Rock Bluff area when he was only three weeks old, served as the pastor of the church for over 40 years. He was first called as pastor of the church on July 15, 1915. Other pastors include Charles Killough who served two months and C.Q. Herndon  who served 16 months. 

   For the first eight to ten years the church held services in the old log school hose.  Then in 1887, B.F. Clark gave the land where the present church is located.  Additional land was given by Higginbothams Co. in 1911 that completed the present church site.  The present church was constructed in 1927.   After Frank preached a sermon that indicated there would be three world wars, he was removed from what is now the Southern Baptist Convention.  The church supported him and was thereafter not affiliated with any convention.

       In the early 1900s, the church started holding an all-day singing on the first Sunday in May.  The event continued for years and was declared a special Sesquicentenial event during the Texas Sesquicentenial Celebration in 1986.

    A number of small area churches evolved out of the Rock Bluff membership.  They including Liberty, Harmony, Turkey Creek, Bethel  and Antioch.  Liberty is the only one still active. 

     In 1965 H. Frank Skaggs was still serving as pastor with W.C. Browning, S.K. White and Pete Joiner serving as Deacons.  Frank Skaggs also served as pastor of Oliver Springs, Beattie, Ellison Springs, Leon and Cheaney as services were held at the various locations on a rotating basis.  Frank suffered a stroke in January 1966 and died November 17, 1968.

   The Rock Bluff community developed in the mid 1870s along a boulder strewn bluff of the Sabano River about seven miles west of De Leon.  The dozen or so families that formed the community included the Skaggs, Quinn, Browning, Harris, Forrest, Joiners and Robinetts.  Those families centered around the Rock Bluff Baptist Church, a school and a cemetery.

  A view of the rocky bluff that extends for a couple hundred yards along the banks of the Sabano River west of De Leon.