Lexington Schools
Lexington, Lee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First local school session was held in 1849 in log home of Capt. James Shaw (1808-79), founder of Lexington, then in Burleson (since 1874 in Lee) County. Andrew Neill Lodge No. 138, A.F. & A.M., to which Shaw and other patrons belonged, joined with newly-formed School District No. 9 in 1854 to build a 2-story schoolhouse-lodge hall a mile south of town. In 1860 the school became Lexington Male and Female Academy, using same hall. A frame schoolhouse (1892) and one of brick (1910) antedated the present plant that was begun in 1936 with high school building. (1972)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Lexington's first school met in 1849 in the log home of town founder Capt. James Shaw, and by 1854 patrons of the local Masonic lodge joined the new school district to raise a two-story schoolhouse-and-lodge hall south of town. It became the Lexington Male and Female Academy in 1860, and a succession of frame and brick buildings led to the campus begun in 1936. The school's story binds together the town's founding, its fraternal life, and its schooling.
Why it matters
The school's history traces how frontier Texans pooled civic and fraternal effort to bring education to a young settlement.
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Related people
- · James Shaw
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The First Baptist Church of Lexington
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Inspired by the Rev. E. E. Lee of nearby Prospect Church, a handful of elders and nine charter members organized this Baptist congregation in January 1855 and raised their first building that same year. A Sunday School followed in 1866. When Prospect Church disbanded in 1949 its members joined here, and across the generations the Lexington congregation has built five successive houses of worship.
Lexington Masonic Lodge No. 138
Lexington, TX
Chartered in 1854 when Lexington still lay within Burleson County, this Masonic lodge took its first name from Andrew Neill, a veteran of the Texas War for Independence. Its members did more than meet: they helped raise a building that doubled as a school, chartered in 1860 as the Lexington Male and Female Academy, and later sponsored an Order of the Eastern Star chapter. The lodge has remained a fixture of community life for well over a century.
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