Center Hill
Houston County, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early settlers in this part of Houston County established homes in the nearby communities of Corinth, Old Zion, and Randolph. Community life centered around farming and church activities. Settlers met together for worship at the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Corinth. A building erected there in the late 1850s served as both church and school for the surrounding communities until it was destroyed by fire in 1881. Sensitive to the need for a new church structure to serve area residents, George W. and Loucetta A. Julian donated three acres at this site in 1883 for a new Methodist church building. Because of its central location, it was named Center Hill. A community school, named Center Ridge, also met in the church building. A separate school structure was erected one mile northeast in 1914 and continued in service until 1935, when the school was merged with the Kennard School District. Center Hill maintained its ties to the earlier communities, and area citizens continue to use the cemetery established at Corinth in 1864. Descendants of early settlers remain in the area.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The scattered families of communities like Corinth, Old Zion, and Randolph built their lives around farming and church, worshiping together at a Methodist building in Corinth that served as both church and school until fire took it in 1881. In 1883 George W. and Loucetta Julian donated three acres here for a new church, and because of its central location it took the name Center Hill. A community school met in the building until it merged into the Kennard district in 1935, but area families still tend the old Corinth cemetery.
Why it matters
Center Hill shows how the rural church-and-schoolhouse served as the shared civic heart of dispersed farming communities, binding neighbors together across generations in the piney woods of East Texas.
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Related people
- · George W. Julian
- · Loucetta A. Julian
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cedar Point Church and Cemetery
Houston County, TX
Formally organized in July 1885 around a newly built sanctuary, the Cedar Point Church gathered under Presbyterian circuit preachers who placed a strong emphasis on Christian education, music, and revivals. As membership dwindled, the congregation dissolved around 1946, but its adjacent cemetery—begun with the 1891 burial of Sam Houston Rice—endured. A cemetery association has cared for the grounds ever since.
First Baptist Church of Kennard
Kennard, TX
About fourteen men and women organized the First Baptist Church of Kennard in October 1903, quickly buying land and raising a one-room house of worship in this Houston County town. For decades the congregation made do with shared and circuit-riding pastors before calling the Rev. W.P. Lott as its first full-time minister in 1945. Through the twentieth century the church grew its facilities, campaigned against liquor and gambling, and built youth, music, and scholarship programs toward its centennial.
Former Rosenwald School
Kennard, TX
Built around 1920 near Ratcliff, this one-teacher schoolhouse was one of hundreds of Texas schools funded through the philanthropy of Julius Rosenwald, the Chicago businessman who partnered with Black communities to build schools for African American children across the South. Local Houston County residents matched Rosenwald's grant, and dedicated teachers like Alfred Foy carried on a tradition of learning that had begun in brush arbors and log cabins. Parents brought food so the children could have hot lunches, a testament to the community's fierce commitment to education.
Allen Chapel Community
Houston County, TX
In the 1870s, emancipated people who had been enslaved on nearby plantations built homes and farms here, founding a community that would take its name from church trustee Nat Allen. Life revolved around the African Methodist Episcopal church and a one-room schoolhouse near this site. That schoolhouse was moved to Kennard in 1968 and brought back in 1985, and descendants of the original settlers live here still.