Students of the Class of 1915, school unknown. Courtesy Sachse Historical Society
Collin County was so overrun with rats a century ago that rural schools held competitions to see how many rats a student had killed – by counting the tails brought to class. That’s according to Joy Gough, author of “Early Schools of Collin County, Texas, 1846-1960.”
Gough is the author of several books about Collin County history including cemeteries, place names and railroads.
She recently completed work on the second edition of a 563-page reference book on early schools that was printed by the Collin County Historical Commission. The books are not available for sale but have been distributed to libraries so patrons may use them for research.
“We thought we would start out doing 70 or 80 schools and we ended up with 250 schools – that we know of,” Gough said.
Gough said she printed 20 books initially and when those 20 were gone she started on the second edition because she found so many more schools. Both editions came out this year.
The book started as a COVID project, she said, adding, “During COVID, I would spend two or three hours a day on the computer,” she said.
“I would go through old books and then newspapers, primarily the McKinney newspapers back in the day and then do research,” she said.
One of the first things that the early settlers did was establish schools, Gough said. “Collin County was started in 1846 and one of the first things they did was to start a school. Within five years they had half a dozen of them.”
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