Peabody School

The school took its name from a fund that mostly passed Black children by. George Peabody set up the Peabody Education Fund in 1867 to aid schools in the South, but because it could not found new schools only 6.5 percent of its early disbursements reached schools for Black students, Wikipedia reports, citing a 1966 study. No source reached ties the fund to the Hillsboro school. The Handbook of Texas records that public schools for white and Black children opened in Hillsboro in 1886, replacing private academies. The fund closed in 1914 after distributing about $2.5 million.

What the plaque says

Peabody School In 1885, a bond was issued for the construction of an African American School, which was built soon afterwards. The school, named for George Peabody, a banker who distributed funds to the southern states following the Civil War, educated students in the African-American neighborhood in Hillsboro known as Freetown. A brick building replaced the original frame structure in 1919, and was used until the school moved to here in 1950. Peabody School's last graduating class was in 1966, with primary level classes held on the campus for several more years until full integration occurred. Although the building burned down in 2005, Peabody School remains a source of pride for Hillsboro residents. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hill County Courthouse — 0.7 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Cleburne State Park — 30 mi
  A 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps park on the old Chisholm Trail crossing country, with a spring-fed lake, a hand-carved three-tiered spillway and a CCC bridge in Johnson County.
• Bosque Museum — 31 mi
  A Clifton museum holding what it calls the largest repository of Norwegian artifacts in the South and Southwest, with Bosque County finds some 10,000 years old and a log cabin built by the Olson family.

More markers nearby

• Hillsboro Junior College — 0.5 mi
• City of Hillsboro — 0.6 mi
• Bragg Williams Lynching — 0.7 mi
• Site of Old Lexington Village — 0.7 mi