San Felipe High School
Del Rio, Val Verde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1929, San Felipe Independent School District (I.S.D.) formed; one of the district’s first decisions was to establish a high school. Residents voted unanimously for a bond for the institution. Building was completed at the corner of Plaza and Garza Streets and the new high school opened in December 1930. The new campus hosted a full range of grades, with secondary students attending school in the main building and grades six through eight housed in a posterior structure. The high school offered traditional subjects, competitive sports and a wide range of fine arts. The colors for the mighty Mustangs of San Felipe High School were purple and gold. In 1932, the school held its first commencement exercises for a graduating class of seven students. San Felipe High School was known for its caring teachers, who along with administrators helped to create a close-knit community. The school also had high parental involvement. This encouraging atmosphere shaped students, aiding them in achieving later career and life success. Additionally, the school served as a focal point for the community. It held adult education classes and citizenship classes, functioned as a voting place, and has housed families displaced by floods. In 1971, San Felipe High School closed when San Felipe I.S.D. consolidated with Del Rio I.S.D. Memory of the institution has been kept alive by the generations of students who attended and by the school’s alumni association, a rarity for a school that no longer exists. Today, San Felipe High School is remembered for being a cornerstone in the San Felipe community for over 40 years. (2009)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1929 the residents of San Felipe, a Mexican-American community near Del Rio, voted unanimously to bond themselves for a high school, and by December 1930 the Mustangs had a home at Plaza and Garza Streets. For four decades the purple-and-gold school was far more than a classroom: it hosted graduations and adult citizenship classes, served as a polling place, and even sheltered families driven out by floods. When it closed in 1971 upon consolidation with Del Rio, its alumni kept an association alive—a rare tribute to a school that no longer exists.
Why it matters
San Felipe High captures how a Mexican-American community built and cherished its own institution, making a schoolhouse the beating heart of civic and cultural life along the border.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the late 1920s, Del Rio sat on the Rio Grande at the edge of the Texas borderlands, a place where Mexican and American cultures had blended for generations. The San Felipe neighborhood, named for the springs and creek that gave the area its water, was home to a large Mexican-American community.
Across Texas at that time, Mexican-American children often faced segregated and unequal schools. Del Rio itself was the setting for one of the first legal challenges to that practice: in 1930, Mexican-American parents went to court in a case known as Del Rio Independent School District v. Salvatierra. The courts did not end the segregation, but the case showed that families were organizing to fight for their children's education. Around the same time, in 1929, Mexican-American Texans founded the League of United Latin American Citizens, which became a leading voice for civil rights.
It was in this climate that San Felipe residents formed their own school district in 1929. The Great Depression was just beginning, and money was scarce for everyone. Even so, the community voted unanimously to take on a bond to build a high school, a remarkable statement about what education meant to them.
People & events
One of the first decisions of the new San Felipe Independent School District was to build a high school. Voters approved the bond without a single no vote. The building went up at the corner of Plaza and Garza Streets and opened in December 1930. High school students used the main building, while sixth through eighth graders had classes in a building behind it.
The school offered traditional academic subjects, competitive sports, and a wide range of fine arts. Its teams were the mighty Mustangs, dressed in purple and gold. In 1932, the school held its very first graduation, with a class of just seven students. Those seven were the start of a long line of graduates.
San Felipe High became known for its caring teachers, supportive administrators, and parents who were deeply involved. Students grew up in a close-knit setting that helped many go on to success in their careers and lives. The school also served the whole community: it held adult education and citizenship classes, served as a polling place, and even sheltered families forced from their homes by floods. In 1971, the district merged with Del Rio I.S.D., and the high school closed. Its alumni association lives on, a rare honor for a school that no longer exists.
Its place in the American story
San Felipe High School is part of the larger story of Mexican-American communities fighting for good schools. In much of the Southwest during the twentieth century, Mexican-American children were too often given less. Communities like San Felipe answered by building and supporting institutions of their own, with their own teachers, traditions, and pride.
The school's citizenship classes and its role as a polling place also connect it to the story of American democracy. Helping neighbors become citizens and giving them a place to vote turned a schoolhouse into a doorway to full participation in national life. That role was just as important as anything taught in the classrooms.
The school closed in 1971, during a period when school districts across the country were being reorganized and integrated. Many communities lost beloved schools in those years. San Felipe's alumni have kept its memory alive for decades, showing how much a neighborhood school can mean in shaping identity, especially for a community that had to work hard for its place.
If you visit
The marker stands in the San Felipe area of Del Rio, near the corner of Plaza and Garza Streets where the high school opened in 1930. This is a living neighborhood with deep roots, so take your time and imagine the purple-and-gold Mustangs, the Friday games, and the graduations that once filled this corner with families.
Think about everything this one school building did: it taught teenagers, welcomed adults to citizenship classes, served as a voting place, and opened its doors to neighbors fleeing floods. It is a good reminder that history is not only made on battlefields, but also in schoolrooms and community halls.
While you are in Del Rio, the nearby San Felipe Springs and San Felipe Creek help explain why people settled here in the first place. Del Rio also makes a fine base for exploring the border region, including Amistad National Recreation Area and the Rio Grande. Please be respectful of the surrounding neighborhood when you visit.
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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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
San Felipe Independent School District
Del Rio, TX
On Del Rio's east side, the historically Hispanic community along San Felipe Creek made education a priority, raising a schoolhouse by 1883. When Del Rio schools annexed the community in 1928 to capture its tax revenue, residents fought back—winning in court and then organizing their own San Felipe Independent School District in 1929. The district served the community until 1971, when a federal court ordered consolidation with Del Rio for integration.
Langston School
Del Rio, TX
San Felipe ISD opened this two-room schoolhouse for African American students in the 1930s and ran it again from 1945 to 1956, naming it for Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes. A single teacher taught as many as thirty children across grades one through eight, while those seeking high school had to travel to Del Rio or as far as San Antonio or Houston. As the district integrated, Langston School closed in 1957.
Santos S. Garza
Del Rio, TX
Known as 'Don Santos' and the 'Father of San Felipe Schools,' Santos S. Garza came to Del Rio in 1898 and built a string of businesses—a theater, general store, dairy, pharmacy, ranch, and bar. His lasting legacy was civic: in 1928 he blocked the annexation of the San Felipe area by the Del Rio school district, keeping his largely Mexican-American community in control of its own schools, and he led the movement that created the San Felipe I.S.D. in 1929.
Elks Lodge Hall
Del Rio, TX
In 1916 the local chapter of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks raised this meeting hall to plans by builder Martin Brauer, replacing an earlier structure on the site. Its Prairie Style influence shows in the low hipped roof, overhanging eaves with exposed rafters, paired French doors, and a balcony on brick piers. For decades the hall hosted lodge meetings, dances, and community gatherings until the Elks built a new home in the 1980s.