Dido School
Avondale, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Dido community was one of the first established in Tarrant County. In 1848, settlers homesteaded in this part of Peters Colony, establishing a community along a stage route from Fort Worth to Decatur. Dido School organized in 1854, with A.C. McCanne of Missouri as the first teacher. His wife Margaret Caroline (Fulton) taught here in the 1860s while A.C. served in the Confederate Army. Classes were sometimes held in church buildings, and later trustees built a schoolhouse adjacent to Dido Cemetery. Regional development from the Rock Island Railroad (1892), Eagle Mountain Lake (1931) and a Marine training base (1941) caused school attendance in Dido to decline. The Tarrant County School Board closed Dido School in 1947. (2008)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Dido was among the first communities in Tarrant County, homesteaded in 1848 within the Peters Colony along the stage road from Fort Worth to Decatur. Its school opened in 1854 under a Missouri-born teacher, and when he left to serve in the Confederate Army his wife carried on the classes. Railroads, a new lake, and a wartime Marine base later reshaped the area, drawing families away until the school closed in 1947.
Why it matters
The century-long life of a single country school captures how frontier settlement, the Civil War, and twentieth-century development each in turn transformed rural Texas communities.
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Related people
- · A.C. McCanne
- · Margaret Caroline Fulton McCanne
Themes & tags
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