F.W. Gross High School

The school's first building, the Victoria Colored School of 1901 on East Convent Street, opened with F. W. Gross as principal over a faculty of eight. He pushed students toward college. When he left in 1907, C. H. McGruder took over and kept the district's policy of industrial arts for young men before graduation. Black high school students used the East Convent building until a new one was finished, in 1938 by the National Register form and 1939 by the plaque. The register form says it took Gross's name in 1923; the plaque says 1935.

What the plaque says

F.W. Gross High School Education of Victoria's African American schoolchildren began during reconstruction; a freedman's school on East Convent Street is referenced in an 1868 deed. By 1875, three of the city's ten schools served African American pupils. Prof. Frederick W. Gross, who attended Texas' Wiley and Bishop Colleges as well as Fisk University and the University of Chicago, came to Victoria about 1887 and was a principal for twenty years. His tenure included organization of the Victoria Independent School District in 1898, and construction of a prominent brick schoolhouse at the East Convent Street site in 1902. Although the school was dedicated as the Victoria Colored School, many residents referred to the facility as "The Gross School." Gross left Victoria to become president of The Houston Academy. C.H. McGruder, a teacher at the Victoria Colored School, succeeded Gross as principal in 1907 and served for sixteen years. Victoria County native A.D. Sheffield followed as principal for fifteen years. His 1934 history of African American education in Victoria suggested officially renaming the school after Gross; the school board approved the change the following year. Due to overcrowding at the school, a 1938 bond election and supplemental federal funding through the Public Works Administration resulted in construction of a new building on South Depot Street in 1939. The school maintained a reputation for excellence in academics and athletics. This campus continued as Victoria's high school for African American students until integration in 1966, and later as an elementary school. Since 1979, annual alumni reunions have preserved the traditions and history of this historic school. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• De León Plaza — 0.8 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 2.2 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 25 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Goldman Ginnery — 0.3 mi
• Palestine Missionary Baptist Church — 0.4 mi
• Webster Chapel United Methodist Church — 0.4 mi
• Site of Southern Pacific Railroad Depot — 0.6 mi