Mitchell School
Victoria, Victoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The citizens of Victoria voted to establish an Independent School District in an 1898 election. Immediate plans called for the building of eight schools: four for Anglos and four for African Americans. In 1901 school trustees hired prominent local architect Jules Leffland to design two buildings,and this site was acquired for the first Anglo high school. Named Central High School, it was completed in 1902. After secondary school students were reassigned to the new Patti Welder High School in 1918, the school at this site was renamed Third Ward School and served elementary grades. The name was changed again in 1922 to honor J.D. Mitchell (1848-1922), one of the school district's first trustees and a former city council member and state legislator. Leffland's imposing 3-story school building suffered major damage due to fires in 1935 and 1943, resulting in the removal of the third floor. Additional alterations occurred over the years to meet the changing needs of the facility. Although no longer in use as an elementary school, Mitchell School continues to serve as an educational center, housing classes of the Mitchell Guidance Center. (1995)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Victoria voted to create an independent school district in 1898, its plan laid bare the era's racial order: eight schools, four for Anglo children and four for African American children. Prominent architect Jules Leffland designed the imposing three-story building completed on this site in 1902, later renamed to honor early trustee J.D. Mitchell. Fires in 1935 and 1943 cost the school its top floor, but the building endured and still serves as an educational center today.
Why it matters
The school's very founding plan documents the machinery of segregation in Southern public education, and its long survival makes it a living record of that history.
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Related people
- · Jules Leffland
- · J.D. Mitchell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Victoria
Victoria, TX
On May 15, 1852, a small band of eight men and women—among them an enslaved person—organized the First Baptist Church of Victoria on the Texas coastal plain. In its early years the congregation shared a Methodist meeting house and later built a frame sanctuary above an Odd Fellows lodge hall. A steeple bell recovered after a storm scattered the port town of Indianola has followed the congregation through each new building since 1878.
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