Odd Fellow and Rebekah Children's Home
Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1885 the Grand Lodge of Texas, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, founded the I. O. O. F. Widows and Orphans Home, one of the first fraternal orphanages in the state. Corsicana Lodge No. 63 and other local citizens gave 200 acres as a site for the facility. On April 26, 1886, the cornerstone for the first permanent building was laid. Only one child was residing here in 1891, but enrollment and financial support soon increased. The home became a self-contained community with its own independent school district, farm and dairy, power plant, and water supply. Abel Rice Auditorium, built in 1911 when enrollment was over 300, contained a swimming pool and gym, and housed the fine arts department sponsored by the Rebekah lodges. This institution also served as a home for the aged from 1905 until a separate facility opened in Ennis in 1928. After peaking at nearly 400 in the 1920s, enrollment dropped sharply in the 1930s and 1940s. The school closed in 1943, and students began attending Corsicana public schools. Campus buildings were modernized in a 1945 "reconversion program." Renamed in 1948, the Odd Fellow and Rebekah Children's Home has provided care for over 5500 persons.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1885 the Grand Lodge of Texas, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, founded this home as one of the state's first fraternal orphanages, on 200 acres given by the Corsicana lodge and local citizens. It grew into a self-contained community with its own school district, farm and dairy, power plant, and even a gym and swimming pool, peaking near 400 residents in the 1920s. It also sheltered the aged until 1928, closed its school in 1943, and, renamed in 1948, has cared for more than 5,500 people over its life.
Why it matters
Before public welfare, fraternal orders like the Odd Fellows built the safety net for orphaned and elderly Americans, and this home is a rare surviving monument to that era of private charity.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Meritt Drane
Corsicana, TX
Born in Kentucky to a wealthy farming family, Meritt Drane set out for Texas in 1858, drawn by "the fire of youth." Unable to serve in the Confederate army because of a disability, he instead helped manage the affairs of soldiers' wives during the Civil War, then built lasting success in farming and stock raising in Navarro County's rich Blackland soil. As a Corsicana civic leader he sold farm machinery, served on the school committee that opened the town's first public schools in 1882, and helped establish the State Orphan Home—so respected that a post office was named "Drane" in his honor.
Corsicana State Home
Corsicana, TX
In 1887 the Texas Legislature created the State Orphan Asylum, and Corsicana citizens donated more than 200 acres to bring it to their town. The first children arrived in 1889, and the campus grew into a self-sustaining community with its own school district and working farmlands that both fed the residents and taught them a trade. Through the Depression the home sheltered more than 800 children, and later, renamed the Corsicana State Home, it continued caring for young Texans, among them a future Texas Supreme Court chief justice.
James L. Collins
Corsicana, TX
James L. Collins entered the oil business at fourteen in West Virginia and followed Texas's new discoveries to Corsicana around 1923, forming the Wheelock & Collins Oil Co. He became a force in developing the Corsicana and East Texas fields and rose to leadership in national petroleum associations. A lifelong bachelor, he left his $13 million estate to charities, a Catholic school built at this site, and scholarships for Corsicana graduates.
Oak Valley School
Corsicana, TX
Oak Valley was one of thirty school districts laid out in Navarro County in 1867, though classes waited until the 1870s, when a new state constitutional provision finally allowed taxes to fund public education. A one-room schoolhouse rose late that decade on land later deeded by the Garner family, and by 1919 nearly a hundred students filled a new two-room building. The school served the rural area for more than seventy years before the Corsicana district absorbed it in 1949.