Site of Booker T. Washington High School
Wichita Falls, Wichita County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Records indicate that by 1886, when Cora Robinson was chosen as a teacher, Wichita County operated at least one school for African American students in the Wichita Falls area. Other early teachers included A.L. Hedrick and M.E. Hunter, and students attended classes at different times in facilities on Mill, Park and Sullivan streets. Walter Downing and C.C. Trimble served as principals for many years, but it was during the princaipalship of H.D. Robinson that a three-story brick school building was constructed at this site. In 1921, former Wichita Falls mayor Jim Marlow sold eight acres in this section of town to create a new African American business and social center. The community chose this site for the Booker T. Washinton School, named for the noted educator and author. The school became a neighborhood focal point, and businesses developed around it that further placed it at the center of Wichita Falls' African American community. In 1922, A.E. Holland became the school's principal. He served until 1946, and under his leadership the school became a Class A accredited campus, and additional facilities, including a cafeteria and lighted football field, were constructed. The acclaimed C.E. Jackson served as principal from 1946 to 1963, during which time the district added a gym and an adjacent elementary school, also named for Washington. The high school moved to a site on Harding Street in 1963, and the district integrated in 1969, razing the former Washington High School building in 1971. Since that time, the community has continued using other buildings on the campus, including the cafeteria, which now serves as a center for the school's proud alumni. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
African American education in Wichita Falls reaches back to at least 1886, when Cora Robinson was hired to teach, but it found a lasting home after 1921, when eight acres were set aside to create a Black business and social district. There the community built Booker T. Washington School, named for the famed educator, and under principals like A.E. Holland and C.E. Jackson it became an accredited campus at the heart of Black community life. The high school moved in 1963, the district integrated in 1969, and the original building was razed in 1971—yet the alumni still gather in a surviving campus building.
Why it matters
Booker T. Washington High School was the anchor of a segregated community's economic and civic life, and its story—from Jim Crow schooling to integration—maps the long arc of African American education in America.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Black education in Wichita Falls started early. The marker shows the county running at least one school for African American students by 1886, when the town was still young. This was the Jim Crow South, where Texas law required separate schools for Black and white children. Black schools usually had far less money and equipment than white ones. In those early decades the school moved between buildings on Mill, Park and Sullivan streets, a sign of how little permanent support it got.
By around 1920 Wichita Falls was changing fast. The North Texas oil boom brought new people, new money and new building to the region. Segregation also shaped where people could live and do business. In 1921 a former mayor sold eight acres in this part of town to create a new center for African American business and social life. The school's location came out of that larger plan.
The school's story covers the whole era of legal segregation and its end. It grew strong in the 1920s through the 1950s. Then came the national push to desegregate after the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Wichita Falls integrated its schools in 1969, and the original building was torn down two years later.
People & events
The first name on the marker is Cora Robinson, a teacher picked in 1886. She is one of the earliest people we know of who taught Black children in Wichita Falls. Teachers A.L. Hedrick and M.E. Hunter followed. Longtime principals Walter Downing and C.C. Trimble kept the school going through years of moving from one building to another.
The school finally got a permanent home while H.D. Robinson was principal. A three-story brick building went up on this site, in the new district created when Jim Marlow sold his eight acres in 1921. The community chose to name the school for Booker T. Washington, the educator and author who had built Tuskegee Institute. It quickly became the center of the neighborhood, and businesses grew up around it.
A.E. Holland became principal in 1922 and led the school for twenty-four years. Under him it earned Class A accreditation, a real achievement for a Black school working with the limited resources of segregation. A cafeteria and a lighted football field were added too. Friday nights under those lights must have brought the whole neighborhood out.
C.E. Jackson led the school from 1946 to 1963, and the marker calls him acclaimed. A gym and an elementary school, also named for Washington, were added during his time. Then came the changes. The high school moved to Harding Street in 1963, the district integrated in 1969, and the old building was razed in 1971. The cafeteria survived, and today it serves as a gathering place for the school's alumni.
Its place in the American story
Across the segregated South, Black communities often made their schools much more than places for lessons. A school like Booker T. Washington was a source of pride, a meeting hall, a sports arena and a path upward, all at once. Black teachers and principals were respected leaders, and men like A.E. Holland and C.E. Jackson held their communities together for decades.
The school's name matters too. Booker T. Washington was one of the most famous African Americans of his time. He argued that education, hard work and economic independence were the road forward. Naming the school for him in the 1920s connected a growing Black neighborhood in North Texas to that national hope.
The school's later years follow a familiar pattern in the history of integration. Desegregation opened doors that had been closed. But in many towns it also closed or tore down the Black schools that had anchored their neighborhoods. Those communities kept the memories, the alumni groups and the reunions. The alumni center in the surviving cafeteria here belongs to that larger story.
This site shows a community that built a strong school under unfair conditions, and that loss and pride often came together in the move to integration.
If you visit
The three-story brick school is gone, so come here to imagine it. Stand on the site and picture a busy campus at the center of a neighborhood, with businesses around it and a lighted football field nearby. The marker is your guide to a landscape that has changed a lot.
Look for the surviving campus buildings, especially the old cafeteria, now home to the alumni. That building connects directly to the school's best years under A.E. Holland and C.E. Jackson. Be respectful of the people and activities you may find there. It is a living community space, not a museum.
The neighborhood around you was planned in 1921 as a center of Black business and social life. As you walk or drive the nearby streets, think about the stores, churches and homes that once grew up around the school.
Wichita Falls is an easy stop on a road trip across North Texas. The town's other historic sites, including reminders of its oil-boom years, give you a fuller picture of the city this school served.
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
- · Cora Robinson
- · A.E. Holland
- · C.E. Jackson
Themes & tags
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