Lavon School
Lavon, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first school in the community of Lavon was a two-story brick building. In 1910, the Little Creek School, which was organized in 1885, closed and transferred to the Lavon School District no. 135. Between 1938 and 1940, the school building for the Lavon Independent School District was built through the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, the WPA was to be an extension of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration Work Program which funded projects at the state and local level. The goal of the program was to employ most of the unemployed people on relief until the economy recovered. While the school was being erected, students attended classes in the Charlie Callahan Store, located north of the school. The construction crew rotated so that everyone in the community that needed work would have the opportunity with wages around $3.50 per day. United States Congressman Sam Rayburn dedicated the building in the fall of 1941. The five-classroom school was designed by architect Hoke Smith and included a large gymnasium with hardwood floors and a kitchen and lunchroom on the south side of the main building. In 1949, the Lavon School District consolidated with the Copeville, Josephine and Nevada districts to form the Community Independent School District. The Lavon School Campus served as the district’s elementary school for a time. Later it was used as a factory and a community library before use as the Lavon city hall.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Between 1938 and 1940, the Lavon Independent School District replaced the community's earlier two-story schoolhouse with a five-classroom building erected through Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, with local crews rotated so every man needing work earned about $3.50 a day. Designed by architect Hoke Smith with a hardwood-floored gymnasium and lunchroom, the school was dedicated in the fall of 1941 by Congressman Sam Rayburn. After districts consolidated in 1949 it served as an elementary school and later as a factory, library, and city hall.
Why it matters
The building is a tangible legacy of New Deal relief work, showing how federal jobs programs left lasting public schools—and paychecks—in rural Depression-era America.
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Related people
- · Franklin D. Roosevelt
- · Sam Rayburn
- · Hoke Smith
Related events
- · Works Progress Administration
- · Great Depression
Themes & tags
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