HistoricSiteMarkers
Progressive & Modern Era

Mita Holsapple Hall (1885-1965)

Sherman, Grayson County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Mita Holsapple Hall (1885-1965) Born near Fair Dealing, Kentucky, Mita Holsapple moved with her family to Sherman as a child and graduated from Mary Nash College. Wed to Hugh E. Hall in 1919, she organized the first Camp Fire Girls group in Sherman two years later. For the next 44 years, her commitment to the Camp Fire movement endeared her to the young women of Sherman and led to local, district and national leadership positions and honors in the organization. In addition to numerous other civic and cultural activities, she co-authored a history of Grayson County for the Texas Centennial in 1936. Recorded - 2002

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Born in Kentucky and raised in Sherman, Mita Holsapple Hall graduated from Mary Nash College and, in 1921, organized the town's first Camp Fire Girls group. For the next 44 years she led that youth movement locally and nationally, earning honors along the way, and she co-authored a county history for the 1936 Texas Centennial.

Why it matters

Hall represents the women who built America's early twentieth-century youth organizations, shaping generations of girls through decades of volunteer leadership.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Mita Holsapple Hall

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Mattie Davis Lucas

Sherman, TX

Born in Mississippi in 1869 and raised in Texas, Mattie Davis Lucas earned a teaching certificate as a teenager and became one of Grayson County's most energetic civic reformers. Working through women's clubs, she drove the founding of a Carnegie library, organized home-front war work, and led efforts to collect and preserve local history. Her push to mark the 1936 Texas Centennial placed several historical markers, and she co-authored the county's first published history — which appeared just days after her death.

Kidd-Key College and Music Conservatory

Sherman, TX

Founded in 1875 as North Texas Female College, a Methodist finishing school for young women, this Sherman institution was rechartered in 1919 as a junior college and music conservatory. It took its later name from Lucy Ann Kidd-Key, the celebrated educator who led the school from 1888 to 1916 and built its reputation in music, literature, and the fine arts. Through its faculty and students, the college shaped culture well beyond North Texas.

Present Home of XXI Club

Denison, TX

Ten social leaders founded Denison's XXI Club in 1890, and by 1896 they had built a two-story brick hall said to be the first woman's clubhouse in Texas, with rooms for music, drama, and art. A charter member of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs, the group used its hall to give Denison its first free public library, which it ran from 1896 to 1935.

Site of Saint Francis Xavier Academy

Denison, TX

In 1876 the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, Belgium, opened St. Francis Xavier Academy in Denison—the first of six Texas schools they would found. Sisters Augustine, Adelphine, Anne, and Benedictine welcomed 46 day students and 8 boarders, all girls from Texas and the Indian Territory, to study arts, sciences, and classics. A Gothic brick building rose in 1901; the school went coeducational in 1924 and closed in 1968.