Leigh Community Center and Health Unit

The schools behind the center date to the railroad's arrival. The Handbook of Texas says Antioch, a mostly Black community around Antioch Baptist Church, formed before 1900, and that when the railroad came in 1900 Rev. James Patterson opened a restaurant and general store beside the tracks. The place was renamed Leigh in 1901, when its post office opened. A 1904 count found one school with five white students and four with 297 Black students. Texas Escapes says residents of nearby Blocker moved to Antioch after the railroad arrived, and that the railroad moved north in the 1950s.

What the plaque says

Leigh Community Center and Health Unit Among the African American community in Leigh, the Reverend James H. Patterson, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church from 1873-1889, encouraged his congregation to buy land, build homes and fund schools and other community enrichment. Several decades later, Leigh Community Center and Health Unit was founded as a continuation of that same idea. As early as 1936, a group of residents led by Antioch school principal Uriel Rosborough Weisner (1891-1979) suggested establishing a community center and health unit. During World War II, Antioch leaders and residents from nearby black school communities, including those of Annie Glade, Carver, High Ridge, Lake Chapel, Pleasant Hill and Smithsonia, furthered plans by the original group. The Leigh Community Center and Health Unit was established on May 13, 1943. U. R. Weisner served as the first director. After World War II ended, the group purchased a building formerly owned by Longhorn Ordnance Works and moved it to Leigh. The community pitched in to update the building. The front of the building provided community space, and the back was devoted to health center operations. The building was dedicated in May 1947. Doctors came at regular intervals to provide immunizations, prenatal and pediatric care, tuberculosis screening, and health classes. Later, Red Cross instruction and dental services were offered. The center sponsored Christmas community outreaches, leadership conferences and annual fairs. Most significantly, in the 1950s after the health unit found contamination in area well water, they identified uncontaminated water sources and eventually assisted in the creation of the Leigh Water Supply Corporation. The organization's work continues to benefit the Leigh community. (2022)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 1.3 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.
• Caddo Lake State Park — 2.4 mi
  A Civilian Conservation Corps park on the Texas shore of Caddo Lake, where the Caddo told of a lake made by wind-driven water and visitors now paddle Big Cypress Bayou past moss-hung bald cypress.
• Excelsior House Hotel — 13 mi
  A brick-and-timber hotel at 211 West Austin that began as a river captain's boarding house in 1858 and was revived by a garden club in 1959, and still takes guests with rosewood furniture.
• Jefferson Historical Museum — 13 mi
  A four-floor museum in Jefferson's 1888-90 federal post office and courthouse, with rooms for African-American history, Jewish heritage, the Caddo and Diamond Bessie, bought by the historical society in 1965 for $8,100.

More markers nearby

• Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant — 1.4 mi
• Hometown of Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson — 1.4 mi
• Old Town of Port Caddo — 2.4 mi
• Marshall-Shreveport Stagecoach Road — 7.1 mi