Langston School

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1901 and grew up mostly in Lawrence, Kansas, raised by his grandmother, Mary Patterson Langston, whose first husband had died in John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. She taught him duty to his race. He studied at Columbia, drew notice in The Crisis, published his first collection, The Weary Blues, in 1926 and graduated from Lincoln University. In the spring of 1927 he read his poems at a YWCA convention in Texas. From 1942 to 1962 he wrote a weekly column for the Chicago Defender.

What the plaque says

Langston School San Felipe ISD operated a school for African American students for a short time in the 1930s and again from 1945-56. Langston School on De la Rosa street was named for Langston Hughes, notable writer of the Harlem Renaissance. San Felipe ISD bought the property in 1934 and built a two-room schoolhouse, consisting of one classroom and a smaller storeroom. Sparse records indicate no principal for Langston and one teacher at a time, who taught up to thirty students in grades one to eight. Those wishing to attend high school went to Del Rio's Tarver School or as far as San Antonio or Houston. Langston school did have a parent-teacher association (PTA). As the school district integrated, Langston closed in 1957. (2013)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Felipe Creek — 0.2 mi
  The spring-fed creek that made Del Rio, rising from the third largest springs in Texas and running past swimming holes and a hike-and-bike trail through town.
• Whitehead Memorial Museum — 1.1 mi
  A village of old Del Rio buildings set along a working irrigation canal, from an 1870 store to a 1925 doctor's office, with Judge Roy Bean buried on the grounds.
• Val Verde Winery — 1.4 mi
  The family winery an Italian immigrant founded on Del Rio's irrigated land in 1883, which outlasted Prohibition by selling table grapes and kept Texas wine alive into the 1970s.
• Amistad National Recreation Area — 9.4 mi
  The American side of the reservoir the United States and Mexico finished in 1969 where three rivers meet, with painted shelters still reachable by boat when the water allows.

More markers nearby

• Site of Camp Del Rio — steps away
• Cal Rodgers and the Vin Fiz — steps away
• Camp Michie — 0.3 mi
• Val Verde County — 0.4 mi