Newsome Dougherty Memorial High School

The college borrowed the building before it could afford one. The Handbook of Texas says Gainesville Junior College opened on September 8, 1924, in part of this high school, with seven faculty members who also taught high school classes. They taught a first freshman class of thirty-eight. The state superintendent of education did not give official approval until November 1925. By the 1930s, under H. O. McCain, enrollment had passed 100. The college began as part of the Gainesville public school system.

What the plaque says

Newsome Dougherty Memorial High School In the early 20th century, the growing city of Gainesville needed a new high school but lacked funds. In 1920, W.H. and Ella Dougherty donated their mansion, which once belonged to U.S. Senator Joseph W. Bailey, and surrounding land to the city for this purpose. The couple stipulated the school be named for their son, Isaac Newsome Dougherty, who died at age 26 in the worldwide influenza epidemic that began in 1918. Facilities opened in 1922 and served students until 1959. In 1924, the campus began housing Gainesville Junior College, later North Central Texas College. The Doughertys' donation thus proved vital to the city's transition to a modern education system. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Great Hanging Memorial — 0.8 mi
  Two granite monuments in a Gainesville park, dedicated in 2014, for the Cooke County men the Confederate militia hanged in October 1862 on suspicion of Unionism.
• Stonewall Saloon Museum — 23 mi
  Saint Jo's first permanent building, a stone saloon of 1873 with rooms upstairs for trail drovers, in a town named, the story goes, as a joke on a founder who did not drink.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.

More markers nearby

• Cooke County Free Library — 0.7 mi
• W. T. G. Weaver — 0.8 mi
• Gainesville National Bank — 0.8 mi
• The Great Hanging at Gainesville, 1862 — 0.8 mi