St. Paul Industrial Training School
Caney City, Henderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The historic St. Paul community, a self-sufficient African American settlement, became renowned for its school and its remarkable husband and wife educators. James Willliam Smothers (1896-1975) of Mt. Meggs, Alabama, was a graduate of Hampton Institute (Virginia) and Prairie View College. Alice Olenza Wingfield (1899-2000) of Greenville, Alabama, graduated from Tuskegee Institute (Alabama). Her father established the first institution for underprivileged African American children in Greenville, influencing young Alice. James and Alice married in 1926 and came to Henderson County to organize St. Paul Industrial Training School. The state department of education had asked Hampton Institute to provide a teacher of scientific agriculture. J.W. As Superintendent and Alice as Principal arrived to find a small schoolhouse for 12 students. Children began arriving from across Texas, and through assistance from the state and benefactors, the campus grew. On December 26, 1942, a tornado leveled all the school buildings. Undaunted, the teachers and students retrieved the lumber and made temporary buildings. J.W. focused on improving the school's crop and livestock yields to consume and sell for profit. Alice began statewide fundraising, and philanthropists helped build a permanent campus of brick buildings. Beyond the regular curriculum, children learned practical skills in home economics, food canning, blacksmithing, sewing and typing, as well as instruction in music and voice. By the time the school closed in the 1980s, the Smothers and their teachers had served thousands of minority students. J.W. taught young people that "if you can't read, people will lie to you. If you can't count, they will cheat you. If you are weak, they will push you around, and if you are jittery, the world will keep you jumping." (2008)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1926 two young Alabama-born educators—James William Smothers, trained at Hampton and Prairie View, and Alice Wingfield, a Tuskegee graduate—came to Henderson County's self-sufficient St. Paul community to run an industrial training school. They arrived to a single schoolhouse of twelve pupils; children soon came from across Texas, and even after a 1942 tornado leveled the campus the couple rebuilt it in brick. Alongside academics, students learned scientific agriculture, home economics, blacksmithing, sewing, typing, and music before the school closed in the 1980s.
Why it matters
St. Paul embodies the Hampton–Tuskegee model of practical education that shaped opportunity for thousands of Black Texans during the era of segregation.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The St. Paul community of Henderson County, Texas, belonged to a remarkable tradition: the self-sufficient African American settlement. In the decades of segregation that followed emancipation, Black Texans who were shut out of white institutions built their own — towns and communities that raised their own churches, farmed their own land, and, above all, ran their own schools.
This was the Jim Crow era, when the doors of opportunity were deliberately narrowed for Black Americans and public schooling for Black children was starved of funds. Into that gap stepped a powerful idea, forged at institutions like Virginia's Hampton Institute and Alabama's Tuskegee: education rooted in practical skills and scientific agriculture, designed to give students economic independence when other paths were barred.
St. Paul became renowned for carrying that idea to Texas — and for the extraordinary husband-and-wife educators who made it real.
People & events
James William Smothers, born in Mt. Meggs, Alabama, was a graduate of Hampton Institute and Prairie View College. Alice Olenza Wingfield, of Greenville, Alabama, graduated from Tuskegee Institute — and had grown up watching her own father run the first institution for underprivileged Black children in their hometown, an example that plainly shaped her life. They married in 1926 and came together to Henderson County, where the state had asked Hampton to supply a teacher of scientific agriculture, to organize the St. Paul Industrial Training School.
They arrived to almost nothing: a small schoolhouse with twelve students. But children began coming from across Texas, and with help from the state and private benefactors, the campus grew. Then, on December 26, 1942, a tornado leveled every building. Undaunted, teachers and students gathered the scattered lumber and raised temporary quarters — and pressed on.
What followed was a division of labor that became legendary. J.W., as superintendent, drove up the school's crop and livestock yields to feed the students and sell for profit; Alice, as principal, launched statewide fundraising that brought philanthropists to build a permanent campus of brick. Students learned home economics, food canning, blacksmithing, sewing, and typing alongside music and voice — and J.W. drilled into them a creed: that a person who cannot read will be lied to, who cannot count will be cheated, who is weak will be pushed around.
Its place in the American story
St. Paul is a Texas chapter of one of the most important educational movements in American history — the Hampton–Tuskegee model of industrial and agricultural training that shaped Black education across the segregated South. Championed by figures who believed practical skill was a lever for dignity and independence, that model produced schools like this one in community after community.
The school's survival tells the larger truth about how these institutions endured. When a tornado destroyed the campus in 1942, there was no guarantee of rescue from outside; the school lived because its own teachers and students rebuilt it, and because an educator like Alice Smothers could raise the money to make that rebuilding permanent. Self-reliance was not just a subject taught here — it was how the school itself stayed alive.
Across the decades until it closed in the 1980s, the Smothers and their colleagues served thousands of students. Multiply St. Paul by the many communities that built such schools, and you have one of the great, under-told engines of Black advancement in twentieth-century America.
If you visit
A visit to the St. Paul community near Caney City is a chance to stand in a place whose greatest monuments are the lives that passed through it. As you take in the setting, picture a working campus that was also a working farm — fields and livestock that fed the students and taught them the science of the land, right alongside the classroom.
Carry the story of that 1942 tornado with you, because it is the heart of the place: an entire campus flattened the day after Christmas, and a community that answered by picking the lumber back up. The permanent brick buildings that rose afterward were paid for by a principal's determination to see her school endure.
Let the words on the marker stay with you as you go — J.W. Smothers's warning that literacy, arithmetic, and strength are what keep a person from being lied to, cheated, or pushed around. It is a good thing to think about here, on the ground where two Alabama-born teachers spent their lives making sure thousands of Texas children would never be so vulnerable.
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
- · James William Smothers
- · Alice Wingfield Smothers
Themes & tags
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