Valley View, Texas, Runnels County. (original) (raw)

History in a Pecan Shell

From "Eighteen Ghost Towns of Runnels County" by Alton O'Neil Jr.

"Valley View is a community at the intersection of State Highway 158 and Farm Road 2111, six miles northwest of Ballinger in Runnels County.

The Pearce School was built in the area in 1887, but the community name Valley View originated when a Baptist church by that name organized in the school in 1908. A schoolhouse was built nearby the next year and called Valley View. The Pearce and Valley View schools merged in 1920 to establish Hagen School, named after the first superintendent. The school was destroyed two different times. In 1922 by a cyclone and in 1932 by a fire. It was rebuilt each time. In 1942 it was moved near the highway and in 1948 the building was moved to Ballinger. Local resident J. A. Patterson helped bring about the moving of a Runnels City church building to Valley View about 1917. This church consolidated with the Barnett Church in 1946 under the name Valley View.

The 1980 county highway map indicated one business and a church at the townsite. Nowadays all that remains is empty buildings and a few memories."

Photographer�s Note: �It was a bait stand when I was last there. Now it is in the process of returning to being a church.� � Barclay Gibson, December 2009

Valley View Cowboy Church sign
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, December 2009

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