PAINT CREEK, TEXAS. Paint Creek is on Farm Road 600 seven miles southeast of Haskell in the southeastern corner of Haskell County. It was formed as a result of the consolidation of five school districts-Post, Howard, Weaver, Rose, and McConnell. Wayne Perry suggested in 1937 that the new school district be named after Paint Creek, a local stream. The first action of the school board was to sell bonds in order to purchase two six-acre pieces of land. Construction of the school began in 1937 and was completed in the summer of 1938. Ten faculty members were hired, and the first day of class was September 5, 1938. The school became an accredited institution during the first year of operation. Fourteen individuals composed the first Paint Creek graduation class. The school obtained electricity from a gasoline-fired electrical generator. The Rural Electrification Association began supplying electricity in 1939. The water supply came from a well on the northeast corner of the campus. During the 1941-42 school term a fire destroyed the original homemaking and agricultural building. In 1945 the relocated homemaking building was again destroyed by fire, and the new agriculture building was destroyed by fire in 1953. One additional fire in 1967 destroyed the classrooms on the west end of the building. Between 1938 and 1941 five additional small school districts-Plainview, Ward, Rockdale, Ericksdale, and Cobb-entered the Paint Creek district. The community also had a church and five to ten houses. The mail was delivered through Haskell. In the late 1980s Paint Creek had the school, two churches, several houses, a football field, and a covered barn in which the school buses were parked.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dorothy Thane Wells, Paint Creek Beginnings (Haskell, Texas: Haskell Free Press, 1958).

Vanessa J. Williams