Dr. Marcellus Clayton Cooper

Before dentistry, Cooper spent eleven years at Sanger Brothers, saving for school. The Dallas Morning News reported in September 1891 that his coworkers gave him a gold-headed cane as he left for Meharry. He opened a Commerce Street practice in 1896 and in 1915 moved to the Pythian Temple on Elm Street, an office building popular with Black professionals. He helped found Penny Savings Bank and invested in Lewis Dry Goods Store. His daughter Marzelle became the county's first Black juvenile probation officer in 1934, and a dental society founded in 1954 carries his name.

What the plaque says

Dr. Marcellus Clayton Cooper In 1896, Dallas native Marcellus Clayton Cooper (1862-1929) became the first licensed African American dentist in the state of Texas. Born enslaved on the Caruth farm, Cooper attended Meharry Medical School in Nashville from 1891-94. He returned to Dallas with his dental license to begin his practice. He was well known in the city for his exceptional work and his contributions to the community. Dr. Cooper was a board member of the Dallas Negro Chamber of Commerce, a founder of the Black-owned Penny Savings Bank and an investor in Lewis Dry Goods Store, the first Black-owned department store in the city. Twice married and with six children, he is buried at Woodland Cemetery in Dallas. (2020)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 5.3 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• Fair Park — 5.6 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 5.7 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 6.0 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.

More markers nearby

• John Goodwin Tower — 0.7 mi
• Caruth Pioneer Cemetery — 0.7 mi
• Zion Lutheran Church — 1.0 mi
• Martin Luther King Jr. at SMU — 1.4 mi