Community Independent School District
Nevada, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Collin County attracted numerous settlers who organized several schools for their children. Eventually these schools consolidated into six separate districts: Josephine, Lavon, Millwood, Mt. Pisgah, McMinn and Nevada. On April 6, 1947, the county school board of trustees of Collin County decided to consolidate these six districts in order to operate one rural high school for the area. Initially, Josephine school district was not part of the newly consolidated district. The town of Josephine wanted to maintain its own school district, but eventually, on July 28, 1947, Josephine ISD was added to the new consolidated district. The town of Nevada was chosen as the site for the high school, which was named Community Rural High School. The name Community was chosen to foster unity among the schools and communities. In 1974, a new campus was built in a central location to house all grades. That same year, it was decided that Community Rural High School District would become an independent school district and adopt the name it has today, Community Independent School District. The population of this area of Collin County has continued to grow and various new schools have been built to accommodate more students. The district itself has been educating students for over seventy years but many of the schools have been operating in their communities for over 150 years. The district is still providing students throughout the Copeville, Lavon, Nevada and Josephine are with a high level of education. (2019)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Collin County's late-19th-century settlers founded many small neighborhood schools, which by the 1940s had splintered into six separate districts. In 1947 the county board voted to consolidate them into a single rural high school, and after some hesitation the town of Josephine joined too; Nevada was chosen as the site, and the new school took the deliberately unifying name 'Community.' In 1974 it built a central campus and became the Community Independent School District it remains today.
Why it matters
The story of Community ISD reflects a nationwide mid-century movement to consolidate scattered one-room and small-town schools into modern districts serving a whole region.
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Related events
- · Consolidation of Collin County school districts (1947)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Josephine
Josephine, TX
In 1888, Sam and Mrs. Tarrant gathered local families at the Reed's Chapel schoolhouse to organize a Baptist congregation under first pastor W.M. Wolfe, and a summer brush-arbor revival quickly added 27 members. The church grew from a wooden sanctuary around 1890 to a three-story brick building in 1911 and a modern sanctuary in 1964, its dirt-floor tabernacle hosting two-week revivals with organist Ella Smith serving for more than seventy years. When the town school was rebuilt in 1936–37, the church even sheltered its high school classes.
Lavon School
Lavon, TX
Between 1938 and 1940, the Lavon Independent School District replaced the community's earlier two-story schoolhouse with a five-classroom building erected through Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, with local crews rotated so every man needing work earned about $3.50 a day. Designed by architect Hoke Smith with a hardwood-floored gymnasium and lunchroom, the school was dedicated in the fall of 1941 by Congressman Sam Rayburn. After districts consolidated in 1949 it served as an elementary school and later as a factory, library, and city hall.
Royse City Lodge No. 663, A.F. & A.M.
Royse City, TX
Freemasonry followed the railroads and new towns across Texas, and Royse City's lodge held its first meeting in 1888 as the community took shape. In 1925 the members raised this two-story building, its truncated towers, brick pilasters, and arched windows blending Classical Revival and Mission styling popular in that era. When the city bought the ground floor in 1941, the arrangement neatly captured small-town Texas life—civic business below, fraternal fellowship above.
Honaker-Holsonbake House
Farmersville, TX
Businessman John Milburn Honaker and his wife Malinda built a Queen Anne home here in 1893, then remodeled it in 1910 into a Neoclassical showpiece with a two-story porch and Doric columns. After Malinda's death, John married her sister and died soon after, and the house passed to a niece and her husband, the Holsonbakes, who owned it into the 1970s. The Holsonbake family became known for generously housing local teachers and hosting community events.