O.J. Thomas High School

The Texas Freedom Colonies Project, quoting a 2009 Temple Daily Telegram story, traces Black schooling here to developments by the Freedmen's Bureau in 1865 and says Little Rocky Cemetery is the only visible trace of that community. The Rosenwald Fund's card for a Cameron school opened in 1925-26 records the money: a total cost of $38,800, of which the Black community gave $1,800, public funds $35,500 and the Fund $1,500. The card calls the school the County Training School. The Fund's grant was small beside the public share.

What the plaque says

O.J. Thomas High School O.J. Thomas High School Early efforts to serve the educational needs of Cameron's African American students centered on church instruction at a place called "Little Rocky" Church in the Marlow Community. In 1923, Oscar John Thomas (1894-1977) joined the district to serve as principal and teacher. Under his leadership, the district secured financing from the Julius Rosenwald fund and built a new facility in 1925. The school was renamed for Thomas in 1938. Thirty years later, during integration, the facility became Cameron Junior High. A 1974 petition changed the name back to O.J. Thomas. In 1995, the junior high closed, and in 1998, the building was sold to an alumni group for use as a community center. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 0.8 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Calvert — 20 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 27 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Cameron — 0.6 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Cameron — 0.6 mi
• First National Bank of Cameron — 0.7 mi
• Milam County — 0.7 mi