North Dallas High School
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The city's fifth high school opened in 1922 on the far north edge of Dallas. At the time, there were three high schools for Caucasian students (Bryan Street, Oak Cliff and Forest) and one for African Americans (Booker T. Washington). The school board responded to growing enrollment with plans for a new school on John H. Cole's farm, the site of the first Texas State Fair in 1886. Board member Clinton Russell chose the site and helped plan the school. He took trips at his own expense to study schools in other cities, and he visited the site daily to personally supervise construction. William B. Ittner of St. Louis, Missouri, who designed hundreds of schools across the U.S., was chosen as architect of North Dallas High School (NDHS). The doors opened on February 13, 1922 with 650 students and E.B. Comstock as the first principal. The first graduating class began an alumni association and established two main events: an Easter morning breakfast and a banquet soon after Christmas. The school mascot (Bulldogs), yearbook (Viking) and colors (orange and white) were chosen in the first few years. The Bulldogs captured many city athletic championships, and an Oct. 1930 football game between North Dallas and Sunset High in the new Fair Park Stadium (later the Cotton Bowl) drew 45,000 fans, then a state record for a high school event. Many distinguished alumni have had notable careers in business, politics and the arts. Court-ordered school desegregation began in Dallas in 1960. Thirty years later, the NDHS student body was 65 percent Hispanic, 12 percent Asian, and thirty-two different countries of origin were represented. The state Legislature and U.S. Congress recognized NDHS as the first international school in the state and nation. (2008)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
North Dallas High School opened in 1922 on the city's northern edge — on land that had hosted the first Texas State Fair — as the school board scrambled to keep pace with a booming population. Designed by nationally known school architect William B. Ittner, it quickly built traditions, a fierce athletic reputation, and a devoted alumni association; a 1930 football game there drew a record 45,000 fans. Over the following decades desegregation and waves of immigration transformed its student body, and the school earned recognition as the first officially designated international school in the state and nation.
Why it matters
NDHS traces the full arc of twentieth-century urban American education — from a segregated system through court-ordered integration to a globally diverse student body — in a single institution.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
North Dallas High School opened its doors in 1922, in the booming, optimistic years of the early twentieth century when American cities were growing faster than their institutions could keep up. Dallas was expanding rapidly, and its schools were straining under the crush of new students — a challenge civic leaders across the country were facing as the nation urbanized.
It was also, unmistakably, the era of legal segregation. When this school opened, the city's high schools were divided by race, with separate schools for white and for African American students. That reality was the law of the land across the South, and the school's own history would later run straight through the long national struggle to undo it.
The site itself carried history: the school rose on farmland that had hosted the very first Texas State Fair back in 1886. Building a grand new high school on such ground tied the young institution to the civic pride and memory of the growing city around it.
People & events
The school owes much to the dedication of individuals. Board member Clinton Russell chose the site and helped plan the building, and he did it with remarkable personal commitment — traveling at his own expense to study schools in other cities and visiting the construction site daily to supervise the work himself. That kind of hands-on devotion is why a building becomes a landmark rather than just an address.
For the design, the board turned to William B. Ittner of St. Louis, an architect who designed hundreds of schools across the country and was among the most influential school designers of his day. When the doors opened on February 13, 1922, some 650 students walked in, greeted by the first principal, E.B. Comstock.
From there the traditions came fast. The first graduating class founded an alumni association and established an Easter morning breakfast and a banquet after Christmas. The students settled on the Bulldogs as their mascot, orange and white as their colors, and the Viking as the name of their yearbook. The Bulldogs became an athletic powerhouse — in October 1930, a game against Sunset High in the new Fair Park Stadium (later famous as the Cotton Bowl) drew 45,000 fans, then a state record for a high school event.
Its place in the American story
Few single institutions trace the arc of twentieth-century American life as completely as this one. The school opened inside a segregated system in 1922. Court-ordered desegregation began in Dallas in 1960, and this school lived through that wrenching, necessary national transformation — the dismantling of legally separate schooling that reshaped American education and society.
Then came another kind of change. Thirty years after desegregation began, the student body had become 65 percent Hispanic and 12 percent Asian, with students whose families came from thirty-two different countries. In that single hallway you could see the great waves of immigration that remade American cities at the close of the century. In recognition, the state legislature and the U.S. Congress named it the first international school in the state and the nation.
Segregation, integration, and a globally diverse student body — all under one roof, across a single lifetime of a school. It is a compact history of who America has been and who it has become.
If you visit
Stand back and take in the building itself first. This is the work of a nationally important school architect, from an age when cities built their schools to look permanent and dignified — the kind of substantial, carefully designed structure meant to inspire the students walking through its doors. Knowing that a single board member visited daily to watch it rise makes the craftsmanship feel personal.
Then let the layers of history settle over you. Picture the earliest graduates founding their traditions, the roar of tens of thousands of fans at a 1930 football game, and — decades later — a student body speaking the languages of dozens of countries. This is a place where the twentieth-century American story didn't just pass by; it happened inside.
The school sits in Dallas near the historic Fair Park area, so it pairs naturally with a day exploring that side of the city's past. Give it a respectful look from the public sidewalk and let it remind you how much national history can live inside one neighborhood institution.
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
- · William B. Ittner
- · Clinton Russell
- · E.B. Comstock
Themes & tags
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