George Washington Carver School

Until Edna's schools integrated in 1966, this was the only high school open to Black students in Jackson County. Buses brought pupils from Edna, Ganado, Cordele, Morales and the Industrial district, and a school history calls it the only four-year Black high school between Victoria and Wharton. In 1949 the Edna paper reported that every teacher held a college degree and about 350 students were expected. The football team reached the state semifinals and the girls' track team won state titles. A fire on March 13, 2014 heavily damaged the main building.

What the plaque says

George Washington Carver School The George Washington Carver School, formerly known as the Edna Colored School, had its first class of students graduate in 1912. Though records are hard to find for the early school years, early settlers believed the site of the first school building to be on the east side of Dry Creek where the police station now stands. The school was established during a tumultuous time in America's social history. Segregated schools were established in Edna but even with the Supreme Court decision stating that segregation was unconstitutional, schools operated on a "two-race" system up until 1965. In 1931, The Edna Colored School was relocated to the southern portion of lots V and VI of Marvin's Second Addition. It stayed in this location until 1953. In 1949, a new auditorium and gymnasium were constructed in the Harlem Addition to the school district. During this time, the Edna Colored School received its new name, George Washington Carver School. In 1954, E. T. and Maymie White-Rose gifted land to the school district to build a new school building. Several of the buildings from the Washington and Harris campus were moved to this new site. The Edna school district was finally integrated in 1967 when Edna High School's graduating class included the first African American students. Even under its "separate but equal" status, Carver School was a highly valued educational institution and has served as a central place for the black community of Edna. In 2008, George Washington Carver was sold to a non-profit group and is now named George Washington Carver Center of Jackson County, Inc. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 24 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.
• Half Moon Reef Lighthouse and Linnville — 24 mi
  The last screw-pile lighthouse of the Texas coast, brought ashore at Port Lavaca, a town founded by refugees from Linnville, the port Buffalo Hump's Comanches burned in August 1840.
• De León Plaza — 26 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.

More markers nearby

• Famous Lavaca-Navidad Meeting of 1835 — 0.7 mi
• Brackenridge Cemetery — 0.7 mi
• Early Jackson County — 0.8 mi
• Macaroni Station — 0.8 mi