Blanco was about one and one half miles south of Snowball. It was a thriving community at one time with a gristmill, sawmill, cotton gin and shop. This per Toby Lonzo Holsted. There was also a school house and church. I am not clear if their was a separate church building or as my grandpa would say "we used it for school and church purposes". Much of the time the school house doubled as the church. However that may not have been the case at Blanco. Grandpa (born 1886) said the first school he ever attended was at Blanco. It was an old shop and didn't have any windows though there were lots of cracks in between the logs to look through and for air to come through. At that time school was held in the summer for about three months. The weather was too bad for the children to walk miles in the winter, especially in the snow. It did not have any actual desk. They just laid boards across logs for benches and desks. It was aways a man teacher because some of the older boys got pretty wild. One threw a slate (no pencils and paper, still wrote on slates) at a teacher. Luckily it missed but it made a hole in the wall. One funny story about the school. It seems the was one student (apparently not well liked) who had brought a sheepskin to sit on because the benches were so hard. He would not let anyone else sit on it. He apparently went home for dinner at noon one day. The others got pins or tacks and stuck them up through the sheepskin. Per grandpa he jumped up a lot faster than he sat down. Ater that he aways ran his hand along it before he sat down. Judy