East Ward Elementary School
Borger, Hutchinson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
IN 1926, EVEN THOUGH THE CITY OF BORGER HAD NOT YET BEEN FORMALLY ORGANIZED, SOME OF THE CITIZENS PETITIONED THE HUTCHINSON COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT TO INCORPORATE AN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL SYSTEM. BORGER I.S.D. WAS OFFICIALLY ORGANIZED ON JUL. 28, 1926, SERVING AN AREA OF 22 SQUARE MILES. WHILE PLANS WERE BEING MADE FOR FIVE BRICK SCHOOL BUILDINGS, TEMPORARY BUILDINGS WERE USED FOR THE 1926 SCHOOL YEAR WHICH NUMBERED 19 TEACHERS AND ABOUT 1,000 STUDENTS. DURING THE FIRST YEAR, NO CITY TAXES WERE AVAILABLE, SO THE CITIZENS AND BUSINESSMEN OF BORGER CONTRIBUTED TO PAY THE TEACHERS’ SALARIES. ON NOV. 15, 1926, H.H. SHELL AND SON FROM LUBBOCK WERE CHOSEN AS CONTRACTOR, AND M.C. BUTLER FROM OKLAHOMA CITY WAS CHOSEN AS ARCHITECT FOR THE CITY’S SCHOOLS. IN 1927, EAST WARD, WEST WARD, WEATHERLY, BORGER HIGH SCHOOL, AND A GYMNASIUM WERE ERECTED. EAST WARD HOUSED 200 PUPILS AND WAS A BRICK AND TILE STRUCTURE WITH FIVE CLASSROOMS, A STUDY HALL, AND AN OFFICE. OF THE ORIGINAL BUILDINGS, EAST WARD IS THE ONLY ONE STILL STANDING. AS THE POPULATION OF BORGER GREW, PARTICULARLY DURING WORLD WAR II, SO DID THE SCHOOLS. EAST WARD AND WEATHERLY BOTH SAW ADDITIONS INCLUDING CLASSROOMS, A CAFETERIA, AND AUDITORIUMS. IN 1957, EAST WARD WAS RENAMED JAMES BOWIE ELEMENTARY. IN JULY 1965, BOOKER T. WASHINGTON SCHOOL, A SCHOOL FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS, WAS CLOSED, AND STUDENTS WERE TRANSFERRED TO JAMES BOWIE ELEMENTARY, WHICH BECAME A FULLY INTEGRATED SCHOOL IN THE FALL OF 1965. IN 1966, THE SCHOOL WAS CONVERTED INTO A CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE BUILDING.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the oil-boom city of Borger was still unincorporated in 1926, its citizens petitioned to create an independent school district, and with no tax base yet in place local businessmen paid the teachers' salaries themselves that first year. Among the five brick buildings erected in 1927 was East Ward, a five-classroom school for 200 pupils and today the only one of that original set still standing. Renamed James Bowie Elementary in 1957, it absorbed the students of the segregated Booker T. Washington School when it closed in 1965 and became fully integrated that fall, before serving as the district's administrative center.
Why it matters
East Ward's arc—from a boomtown built on private generosity to the integration of Borger's schools in 1965—traces both the frontier improvisation of the oil era and the arrival of the civil rights movement in the Texas Panhandle.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1926, Borger was not so much a city as an eruption. A major oil strike had turned this patch of the Texas Panhandle into a classic boomtown almost overnight, drawing thousands of workers, speculators, and families into a place that barely had streets, let alone institutions. Boomtowns like this were famous for arriving faster than any government could keep up — and Borger was so new that it had not even been formally organized as a city when its citizens started worrying about their children's schooling.
That urgency is the key to understanding East Ward. In a settled town, schools follow taxes; in a boomtown, need comes first and the tax base scrambles to catch up. The people of Borger did not wait. They petitioned the Hutchinson County Commissioners Court to create an independent school district, and Borger I.S.D. was officially organized on July 28, 1926, covering an area of 22 square miles.
The first year captures the whole improvised spirit of the era: about 1,000 students and 19 teachers packed into temporary buildings, with no city tax revenue yet available. Rather than let school wait for the bureaucracy, Borger's citizens and businessmen simply paid the teachers' salaries themselves — private generosity standing in for public funds until the town could stand on its own.
People & events
The building of Borger's first real schools moved quickly once the district existed. On November 15, 1926, the district selected H. H. Shell and Son of Lubbock as contractor and M. C. Butler of Oklahoma City as architect. By 1927 the results stood in brick: East Ward, West Ward, Weatherly, Borger High School, and a gymnasium — a full slate of buildings raised in a single push.
East Ward itself was built to hold 200 pupils, a brick-and-tile structure with five classrooms, a study hall, and an office. As Borger's population surged again during World War II, the school grew with it, gaining classrooms, a cafeteria, and an auditorium. Of that original 1927 set of buildings, East Ward is the only one still standing — the sole survivor of the town's first burst of civic construction.
The building's later chapters carry the community's changing story. In 1957 it was renamed James Bowie Elementary. Then, in July 1965, the Booker T. Washington School — a school for African American students — was closed, and its students were transferred to James Bowie, which became a fully integrated school that fall. In 1966 the building's classroom life ended and it was converted into a central administrative building for the district.
Its place in the American story
East Ward's timeline threads two of the great American stories together in one modest brick building. The first is the boomtown improvisation of the early twentieth-century oil era, when energy strikes conjured instant cities that had to build their own institutions from scratch — often, as here, on the strength of citizens who paid teachers out of their own pockets before any tax dollars existed.
The second is the long national struggle over segregated schooling. For generations, communities across the South and the Southwest maintained separate schools for Black and white children. The closing of the Booker T. Washington School in 1965 and the full integration of James Bowie Elementary that fall placed Borger squarely within the era of school desegregation that followed the landmark civil-rights decisions and legislation of the 1950s and 1960s.
That this transition is remembered on a marker matters. Desegregation is often told through famous court cases and big-city confrontations, but it was lived out building by building, town by town, in places like Borger — where a boomtown school named for a Texas hero became the place where the community's schools finally became one.
If you visit
East Ward is best appreciated as a survivor. Of the five brick buildings Borger raised in 1927, this is the last one standing, so when you look at it you're seeing the physical origin point of a whole city's public life — the tangible remainder of a town that willed its schools into being before it had the money to pay for them.
Look at the building as a record of accumulation. The original five-classroom, brick-and-tile core is the boomtown; the added classrooms, cafeteria, and auditorium are the World War II growth; and the two names it has carried — East Ward, then James Bowie — mark its passage through the decades. It's a place where one structure holds several eras at once.
For a traveler exploring the Panhandle's oil-era heritage, this is a stop that connects the drama of the boom to the everyday institutions that outlasted it. Take a moment with the desegregation chapter especially — this is where the students of the segregated Booker T. Washington School came in 1965, and where Borger's schools became integrated. Standing here, you're at a small, real site of a change that reshaped the whole country.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · Desegregation of Borger schools
Themes & tags
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