Common schools, usually offering primary grades and sometimes both primary and secondary grades, covered much of rural Texas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the 1880s, citizens of Aiken established Wheeler School as a common school, and sometime shortly afterward its name changed to Excelsior. On November 23, 1909, William Henry Wheeler and his wife, Allie, sold one acre on the Center-Martinsville Road to the trustees of Excelsior School for school purposes. As enrollment increased, John Beasley built a new schoolhouse in 1916. The student body grew further after the consolidation of Excelsior and White Rock School in 1933, when White Rock School, named for White Rock Baptist Church, merged with nearby Excelsior after its population gradually declined. In 1979, Excelsior changed from a common school to an Independent School District. Of about ninety common schools that existed in Shelby County in the late nineteenth century, what is now Excelsior ISD is the last remaining common school in the area. Though it serves students only through the eighth grade, it prepares them for high school at nearby Center or Martinsville High Schools or elsewhere, and numerous families have seen several generations attend, making the school a central and enduring part of the local community.