Site of First Free Public School
Jacksonville, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1885 a two-story frame structure was built on this site and served as the first free public school in Jacksonville. It was destroyed by a tornado in 1890. A three-story brick building was erected here in 1910-12. Known as the East Side School, it served elementary and secondary students at different times until 1939. After decades of use for school purposes, the hillside stood bare until 1940. In that year a sports stadium, known as the Tomato Bowl, was begun by the Federal Works Progress Administration and the Jacksonville Independent School District.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1885 a two-story frame building on this hillside became Jacksonville's first free public school, only to be destroyed by a tornado in 1890. A three-story brick school known as the East Side School rose here in 1910–12 and taught students until 1939. In 1940 the Works Progress Administration and the local school district began building a sports stadium here, the Tomato Bowl.
Why it matters
The site traces the arrival of free public education in a small Texas town and, later, the New Deal public-works projects that reshaped communities during the Depression.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the decades after the Civil War, Texas was still building the basic machinery of public life, and schooling was one of the slowest pieces to come together. Education was often a patchwork of private academies, church schools, and short community terms. A free public school, open to local children without tuition, was a genuine milestone for a town.
Jacksonville, in Cherokee County in the piney woods of East Texas, was a growing railroad town in the 1880s. Its fortunes were closely tied to farming, and the area would later become famous for tomatoes, shipping them far and wide. As towns like this grew, residents wanted the institutions that signaled a settled, forward-looking community, and a public school topped the list.
The story on this hillside stretches all the way into the Great Depression. By the late 1930s, the federal government was funding public works across the country through New Deal programs, putting people to work building roads, schools, parks, and stadiums. That national effort is how this site found its second life.
People & events
In 1885, a two-story frame building went up on this spot and became Jacksonville's first free public school. For families in a small East Texas town, that was a big deal: a place where children could learn without their parents paying tuition.
Nature had other plans. In 1890 a tornado destroyed the building, a hard reminder of how fragile frontier-era progress could be. The town did not give up on the site, though. Between 1910 and 1912, a much sturdier three-story brick school was built here. Known as the East Side School, it served both elementary and secondary students at different points in its life, and it kept teaching until 1939.
After the school closed, the hillside stood empty, but not for long. In 1940 the federal Works Progress Administration, working together with the Jacksonville Independent School District, began building a sports stadium here. They called it the Tomato Bowl, a proud nod to the crop that put Jacksonville on the map.
Its place in the American story
This one hillside holds two big chapters of the American story. The first is the spread of free public education, which in many places, especially in the rural South, arrived town by town in the late 1800s. Jacksonville's 1885 school is part of that slow, hard-won expansion of learning to ordinary kids.
The second chapter is the New Deal. The Works Progress Administration, created in 1935, employed millions of Americans during the Great Depression, and much of what it built is still in use today. Stadiums, courthouses, schools, and parks across the country trace their origins to WPA crews.
Together, these stories show how communities invested in young people across generations: first in classrooms, then in a place to gather, play, and cheer. The same ground served the town's children in both eras.
If you visit
Stand on this hillside and picture the layers: a wooden schoolhouse, its loss to a tornado, a three-story brick school full of students, and then the stadium that rose where they once stood. It is a site where one era was literally built on top of another.
If you catch the Tomato Bowl on a Friday night in football season, you will get a feel for what the place still means to the town. On a quiet day, it is a good spot to appreciate the craftsmanship of Depression-era public works.
Jacksonville makes a pleasant stop on an East Texas road trip through the piney woods. Its long tomato-growing heritage gives the stadium its name, and the town's history as a farming and railroad center is worth exploring while you are there.
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 events
- · Works Progress Administration
Themes & tags
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