Lovers of Jackson County history will soon have a jolt of interesting new opportunities as the County’s Historical Commission rolls out its new plans for 2026. The Commission and its slate of new officers are getting ready for an active new year.
Chairman Bill Reaves noted that the group has spent the last several months trying to get a better handle on what was needed in the community history wise, and to figure out how we could do our job better on behalf of the county.
“As a result, Reaves said, “we have refined some of our bylaws, created some new classes of membership for local folks who have real interest in County history, but don’t have the time to attend a lot of regular business meetings. We have all agreed on our priority work agenda for the next year, along with a small operating budget, and we feel like we are in good position to kick everything off in 2026.”
In their new plans, JCHC hopes to share more stories with local citizens about the county’s rich Texas heritage. To bring attention to their cause, the first thing they did was to host a booth at the county fair showing a continuously looped power-point featuring many of the old and forgotten rural schools of Jackson County.
Whereas the county now has only three school districts, there were once, (as recently as 1940) over 50 rural schoolhouses in the county in 24 different rural districts.
“The County Superintendent, Mr. I.T.
Taylor, went around in 1939 and took photographs of all these schools and put them in a scrapbook, along with names of the teachers and trustees” said Linda Reaves, the Commission’s new chair of its publications and communications committee.
“Even then, Jackson County was still about the right size where a student who lived out on a ranch or a farm could get to a nearby rural school either by riding in a truck or even a mule. I think it was fun and interesting for a lot of our fair visitors to actually see and remember the old schoolhouses that used to be here in the old days.”
Some of the other things on the Commission’s “to-do list” for 2026 include creating a Downtown History Walk in celebration of Edna’s 100th anniversary as a Texas municipality, as well as hosting a free, four-part community lecture series, Jackson County and the American Experience, to help celebrate America’s 250th year birthday.
They’re also bringing back regular history columns to the local newspaper, as well as a fun new monthly feature entitled History Mystery, which is to be a community-wide photography project where pictures from the past will be publicized, and readers can figure out who and what are contained in these images.
The Reaves emphasized that both the History Walk and History Mystery projects are directly attributable to the lifelong work of new Commission member, Roy Ortolon, whom they announced had recently made an important gift of his entire photographic archive (over 6000 images of Jackson County) to the JCHC.
“This is only the beginning of what we can do to illuminate the history of Edna and Jackson County with Roy’s incredible photographic collection”, Bill Reaves indicated.
The Commission is especially looking forward to working along with the County Commissioners’ Court to complete the design of a new permanent educational exhibition titled, A Tribute to Jackson County Law Enforcement, 1836-2026, which is targeted to be installed late next year on the second floor of the newly restored 1922 Jailhouse.
That is just a drop in the bucket as to what the group hopes to do.
Bill explained that some folks do not know that the historical commission functions as a department of the county, and that its members are appointed by the Commissioners Court.
“Some people confuse us with the museum, and while we are extremely supportive of them, they are a different board. Our role is to help document, preserve and maintain significant historical assets around the county, whether that may be important architectural structures, historic cemeteries, markers, maps or documents,” he said.
He also noted the commission is also encouraged to promote and share stories of our county’s history, and Jackson County certainly has a lot of rich and interesting material to share.
Other officers of JCHC include Patrick Brzozowski, vice chair- man; Lura Faye Motley, secretary; Frank Condron, immediate past chairman, who still serves as chairman of the historical markers committee; and Harrison Stafford, who doubles as the Commission’s Treasurer, as well as committee chairman overseeing historic cemeteries within the county.
With 19 appointed members and six new associate members, the Commission holds four regular business meetings annually. All meetings are posted at the courthouse, and they invite any interested citizens to attend and be a part of the discussions.
“We urge Jackson County residents to stay tuned to learn more about JCHC activities over the upcoming year and encourage everyone with interest in local history to share their knowledge and information with us,” Bill ended.
