Clark, Randolph Lee (1871-1941)
Gainesville, Cooke County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A native of Fort Worth, Randolph Lee Clark worked as a cowboy on the XIT Ranch as a young man. After graduating from Add-Ran Christian University, he worked for state educational offices in Austin. He served as school superintendent in Wichita Falls from 1915 to 1923, when he moved to Gainesville to accept a similar position. With the help of the Kiwanis Club, he convinced the city to open Gainesville Junior College in 1924. Active in state and national educational organizations, Clark was considered a pioneer in the Texas Junior College movement. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Randolph Lee Clark's life spanned the transformation of Texas from open range to modern schooling: a Fort Worth native, he cowboyed on the sprawling XIT Ranch before earning a degree at Add-Ran Christian University. He rose through the state's education offices and superintendencies, and after moving to Gainesville in 1923 he persuaded the city — with the Kiwanis Club's help — to open Gainesville Junior College in 1924. Active in state and national organizations, he became a recognized pioneer of the Texas junior college movement.
Why it matters
Clark helped build the community college model that opened affordable higher education to ordinary Americans across the twentieth century.
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Related people
- · Randolph Lee Clark
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hubert H. Moss
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Born in Woodbine in 1892, Hubert H. Moss trained as a teacher, served in World War I, and returned to become a chemistry professor at the new Gainesville Junior College and a trusted student advisor. From 1946 until his death in 1952 he was Cooke County school superintendent, and as chamber of commerce president he campaigned for a reservoir to secure the city's water. Gainesville completed Hubert H. Moss Lake in 1966 on the very site he had recommended.
Gainesville Junior College
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Championed by schools superintendent Randolph Lee Clark with backing from the Kiwanis Club and PTA, Gainesville Junior College opened in September 1924 inside the local high school, enrolling just thirty-two students. World War II spurred an aeronautics program, and returning veterans filled its first night classes as the curriculum broadened into vocational and continuing education. Separated from the school district in 1960 and renamed North Central Texas College in 1994, it endures as the oldest continuously operating public two-year college in Texas.
Booker T. Washington School
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Two years before Gainesville created a public school system, a young man named Island Sparks began teaching the city's Black children in 1880, and in 1886 the city built a frame schoolhouse for them on this site. Known first as the Gainesville Colored School, it took the name Booker T. Washington by the 1920s, and its original building was replaced by a WPA-built brick structure in 1939. Desegregation in 1965–66 brought its era as a Black school to a close.
Cooke County Free Library
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In 1913 Gainesville librarian Lillian Gunter and the women of the XLI literary club won a Carnegie grant to build a library, but Gunter's real crusade was bigger: she wanted library service for people living beyond city limits. Working with state representative George W. Dayton and the Texas Library Association, she helped pass the County Library Law in 1917, and by 1920 Gainesville had turned its library over to the county—creating one of the first county libraries in Texas.