Concord Schools
Robbins, Leon County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formal schools in Concord operated for nearly a century. J.E. Anderson taught in Redland and Concord in the late 1870s and early 1880s. A two-story frame schoolhouse, active from the early 1880s to 1919, stood on the hill later occupied by the Old Methodist Church. Trustees bought land from D.W. Montgomery, with a two-story red brick building completed in April 1920. The wooden schoolhouse was moved adjacent to the new building and used for primary grades. A new two-story structure, built in 1927, included an auditorium used for school and community purposes. The wooden schoolhouse moved to Concord Hill West for use as an African American School. Concord School added home economics and agriculture classes the following year. In 1929, Griffin, Bowling, Hickory Grove, Redland and Union schools consolidated with Concord, and in 1933 the school achieved state accreditation and attendance peaked above 400 students. The gold and white Concord Bulldogs participated in district sports and other school activities. The Concord Independent School District organized in 1937, and five years later added twelfth grade coursework. However, enrollment dwindled, and in 1948 the school reclassified to an eight-grade system, with students attending high school in Centerville. In 1950, six one- and two-teacher African American schools consolidated to one campus at Concord, succeeded by Carver Elementary and High School in 1953. In 1960, the Board of Education voted to consolidate with Marquez and Jewett to form Leon Independent School District. The home economics building remained as a community center, polling place and post office. The site remains a testimonial to the importance of rural education in the area. (2008)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
For nearly a century, schooling anchored the rural community of Concord in Leon County. From a two-story frame schoolhouse of the early 1880s, the district grew to a brick building in 1920 and a 1927 structure with an auditorium serving the whole community; older buildings were handed down for the primary grades and, tellingly, for a segregated African American school. Consolidations swept in neighboring districts through the 1920s and '30s, peaking above 400 students, and by the 1950s Black schools of the area were gathered at Concord under the Carver name before the district merged into Leon ISD in 1960.
Why it matters
Concord's long arc of building, consolidating, and segregating schools is a microcosm of rural Texas education — and of how separate-but-unequal shaped even the smallest farm communities.
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Related people
- · J. E. Anderson
Themes & tags
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