Also known colloquially as “Coke School,” the Lloyd Common School No. 17 educated children of the rural community known as Coke for generations. After the Texas Legislature passed significant funding for the public school system in the 1880s, local officials organized the Coke School District for the purposes of education. By 1888, a school building had been built for the Coke community, and Dr. Jim Wilson was teaching. The school grew, and for the 1913-1914 school year, Mattie Brewer and Florence Beard taught in the school. In 1941, Bill Pittman began teaching at Coke School. His wife, Corene, also taught at Coke. Bill left to join the army in 1944. In 1942, the Amerada Petroleum Company began drilling test wells near the Coke community, and by the end of the year, struck oil and completed more wells in the area. With an influx of funds associated with the oil boom, the community built a brick schoolhouse. In August 1945, Henry Azariah Robinson and his four sons, Ralph, Maston, Clarence, and Idas, donated a tract, and Ralph and Laura Robinson donated an adjoining tract, forming a lot at the southwest corner of FM 515 and FM 69. When Bill Pittman was discharged, he returned to the new Coke School as its principal. Continued drilling allowed the school to be fiscally independent, rejecting all state and federal funds, and providing all students free lunches and school supplies. The new building became the center of community life, and hosted dance performances by the Coquettes, sports, art exhibits, carnivals, plays and more. The lower grade room at different times housed an alligator caught from Caddo Lake: Poboy and Poboy number 2. As Texas schools began to combine in the 1960s, Coke was the last common school to merge with a larger independent school district when it consolidated with Quitman ISD in 1965. (2023)