Forney Independent School District
Forney, Kaufman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Public education began in Forney (then named Brooklyn) about 1868 when a 16' x 16' room was built, serving as both a schoolhouse and Union church. Forney School District No. 9, formed in 1876, was part of a county-wide school system. In 1889 the first structure was replaced by a 2-story wooden school building. In 1899 the Forney Independent School District was formed. An imposing brick and stone building superseded the wooden structure in 1903. The present edifice was erected in 1938 by a WPA grant. Recent activities included the restoration of the 1938 Forney High School building.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Public schooling in Forney — first called Brooklyn — began around 1868 in a sixteen-foot room that doubled as schoolhouse and Union church. A county district formed in 1876, an independent district followed in 1899, and the wooden schoolhouse gave way to an imposing brick-and-stone building in 1903. The present school was built in 1938 with a Works Progress Administration grant, one of thousands of New Deal projects that reshaped American public infrastructure.
Why it matters
Forney's schools chart the American commitment to public education from a shared frontier room to a New Deal–funded campus that still serves the town.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · Works Progress Administration
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Forney High School Building
Forney, TX
Forney's earliest schoolhouse rose on this ground about 1868, near the general store pioneer settler John C. McKellar built in 1871. The present building, a Spanish Colonial Revival design by WPA architect Hoke Smith, was erected by the Works Progress Administration in 1938–39 with a tile roof, buff brick, and wrought-iron detail. It served as a high school into 1974 and a middle school until 1993.
William Madison McDonald
Forney, TX
Born in 1866 near Terrell to parents who had been enslaved, William Madison "Gooseneck Bill" McDonald rose through the segregated schools of his day with a reputation as the sharpest student in the county, graduating in 1884 and becoming principal of Forney's African American high school. He built a formidable second career in politics as a leader of the Republican "Black and Tan" faction, in business, and as grand secretary of Texas' African American Masons for nearly half a century. Moving to Fort Worth in 1906, he became one of the state's most influential Black civic leaders before his death in 1950.
Brooklyn Lodge No. 386, A.F. & A..M.
Forney, TX
When the Texas and Pacific Railroad arrived at the village of Brooklyn in 1873, residents renamed the town Forney for a railroad director — but the Masonic lodge organized that same year kept the old name. Meeting first in a building shared with the school and a union church, the lodge became a fixture of civic life, laying the cornerstone of Lewis High School in 1922 and building a new hall in 1966. Its story mirrors the town's growth from rail stop to community.
Public Education in Mesquite
Mesquite, TX
Public schooling in Mesquite began with a community school in 1885 and took formal shape when the new Mesquite Independent School District opened its first building here in 1902 with 200 students. A high school followed in 1923 and won accreditation the next year, and in the late 1930s a new high school opened alongside the George W. Carver School for the area's African American students. The district integrated in 1964 and, by 1997, enrolled some 30,000 students.