Lampasas Colored School
Lampasas, Lampasas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The oldest public school building in Lampasas is also a reminder of the era of segregated education. This was the site of a schoolhouse for African American students in 1898. In 1922, citizens voted in favor of a $40,000 bond to remodel the grammar school and high school for white students and erect a new building for black students. The new school was built in April-May 1923 in front of the existing frame building, which was torn down. J.R.S. Hollowell was principal of the Lampasas Colored School at the time. In 1927, overcrowding caused the school board to divide the school day between younger and older children, with each group using the building four hours per day. Activities organized at the school included the Colored Parent Teacher Association (1941), Dramatic Arts Club and Community Youth Choir (1950) and the Boys’ and Girls’ basketball (1951). In 1948, improvements to the building included a covered stone entry (later removed) on the east façade and an extension to the south to accommodate a new stage area. For many years, African American children were taught ten grades in Lampasas and had to attend schools in larger cities to complete high school. In 1951, the school board allowed the Lampasas Colored School to begin teaching 12 grades. The school closed in 1963, and all Lampasas students went to school together starting with the 1963-64 school year. The rectangular-plan limestone schoolhouse with low gable roof exhibits distinctive stone craftsmanship in its coursed rubble walls, stringcourse, copestone, quoins and decorative niches. In 1964 the school district deeded the building to Lampasas County, who used the facility for storage. In 2001, the building was threatened with demolition, but concerned citizens raised money for its preservation and reuse. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 2009
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The oldest public school building in Lampasas began as a schoolhouse for African American students in 1898, replaced by this limestone building erected in 1923 during the era of segregated education. For years its pupils could study only through the tenth grade locally, traveling to larger cities to finish high school, until the school was finally allowed to teach twelve grades in 1951. It closed with integration in 1963, and citizens rescued it from demolition in 2001.
Why it matters
The handsome stone schoolhouse testifies to both the injustice of 'separate but equal' schooling and the determination of a Black community to educate its children.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Lampasas Colored School belongs to the long, painful era of segregated public education in America. Its story begins in 1898, when a schoolhouse for African American students first stood on this site, and stretches across more than six decades in which Black and white children in Lampasas were taught apart by law and custom. That was the world of "separate but equal"—a doctrine that promised equality on paper and rarely delivered it in brick, mortar, or opportunity.
The building that stands today grew out of a 1922 bond vote. Citizens approved $40,000 to remodel the grammar and high schools for white students and to erect a new building for Black students, which rose in the spring of 1923 in front of the older frame schoolhouse it replaced. The very structure of that spending—one pot of money, two separate destinations—captures the era in a single decision.
Inequality showed itself in the everyday facts of the school's life. For many years, African American children in Lampasas could be taught only through the tenth grade locally; to finish high school, they had to travel to schools in larger cities. And when overcrowding struck in 1927, the district's answer was to split the day in two, with younger and older children each getting just four hours in the building. These were the ordinary compromises forced on a community whose schools were never funded as generously as its neighbors'.
People & events
At the time the 1923 building went up, J.R.S. Hollowell served as principal of the Lampasas Colored School—one of those local educators who, across the segregated South and Southwest, carried enormous responsibility with limited resources. Leading a school where children were taught in shifts and where the local grades stopped short of a diploma required a particular kind of dedication, and Hollowell's name endures on the marker as a stand-in for all who kept the school going.
What the building held, above all, was community life. A Colored Parent Teacher Association formed in 1941; a Dramatic Arts Club and a Community Youth Choir followed in 1950; boys' and girls' basketball arrived in 1951. These were not luxuries but the ordinary institutions of a school determined to give its children a full life of learning, performance, and play despite the constraints placed upon it. In 1948 the building itself was improved with a covered stone entry and an extension to the south for a new stage—physical signs of a community investing in its own.
The long-sought breakthrough came in stages. In 1951 the school board finally allowed the Lampasas Colored School to teach all twelve grades, so its students could earn a diploma at home rather than leaving town to finish. Then, with the 1963–64 school year, the school closed and all of Lampasas's students went to school together for the first time. The building later passed to Lampasas County and was used for storage; in 2001, when it was threatened with demolition, concerned citizens raised the money to save and reuse it.
Its place in the American story
This single limestone schoolhouse tells a story that played out in thousands of American towns. The arc from an 1898 schoolhouse, through the "separate but equal" decades, to integration with the 1963–64 school year mirrors the national struggle over segregated education and the slow, contested march toward equal schooling for Black children.
The specific injustices recorded here—local grades that stopped at the tenth, a school day split in half for lack of space, students forced to leave town to earn a diploma—make abstract history concrete. They show what "separate but equal" actually meant in the lives of children and families, and why the fight to change it mattered so deeply. When Lampasas finally allowed twelve grades in 1951 and integrated its schools a dozen years later, it was living out the same transformation reshaping the whole country.
The building's rescue in 2001 adds a modern chapter about memory and preservation. Communities across America have had to decide whether to let the physical evidence of segregation's history be demolished or to preserve it as a place of learning and reflection. Lampasas chose to save its schoolhouse—an act that keeps both the injustice and the community's resilience visible to everyone who passes by.
If you visit
You'll find the oldest public school building in Lampasas built of local limestone, and it rewards a close look. Notice the craftsmanship in the coursed rubble walls, the stringcourse and copestone, the quoins at the corners, and the decorative niches—the handsome, durable work of stonemasons that has let this building outlast the era that created it.
As you take it in, hold two ideas at once. This is a beautiful building, and it is also a monument to an injustice: a school a community was forced to run apart from its neighbors, on less. Both truths live in the same walls, and standing before them is a quiet way to honor the children who learned here and the teachers who taught them.
For a road trip through Central Texas history, the schoolhouse in Lampasas is a meaningful stop, especially for travelers interested in African American history and the civil rights story. Let it be a place to slow down and reflect—on how far a determined community carried its children, and on the neighbors who, decades later, refused to let its story be torn down.
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 people
- · J.R.S. Hollowell
Related events
- · Integration of Lampasas schools
Themes & tags
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