Eugenia Pickard
Abilene, Taylor County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A philanthropic African American woman greatly improved Abilene’s minority neighborhoods. Eugenia Pickard was born in Georgia about 1877. She moved to Texas in the early 1900s and settled in Abilene. Here she owned several properties and made them available for no rent to poor families with children. She also provided places to play to African American children who had no public parks. When Pickard died in 1945, she left savings and property to the city of Abilene to be used for a new African American schoolhouse. The funds were insufficient, so instead the Eugenia Pickard Library was dedicated. Located within Abilene’s Carter G. Woodson High School, it served the surrounding community as an educational and social center.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Georgia around 1877, Eugenia Pickard settled in Abilene in the early 1900s and quietly transformed its Black neighborhoods, owning properties she offered rent-free to poor families with children and setting aside places for African American children to play where the city gave them no parks. At her death in 1945 she willed her savings and land to Abilene for a new Black schoolhouse; when the funds fell short, the community instead dedicated the Eugenia Pickard Library inside Carter G. Woodson High School. It became an educational and social hub for the surrounding neighborhood.
Why it matters
Pickard's private generosity filled the gaps that a segregated city left open, showing how Black philanthropists built the parks, libraries, and schools their communities were denied under Jim Crow.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
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