Radford School

Sandra Day, born in El Paso in 1930, grew up on a 198,000-acre family ranch near Duncan, Arizona, nine miles from a paved road, without running water or electricity until she was seven. For most of her early schooling she lived in El Paso with her maternal grandmother and attended the Radford School for Girls, going home for holidays and summers. After an eighth-grade year riding a bus thirty-two miles from the ranch, she graduated sixth in her class at Austin High School in 1946.

What the plaque says

Radford School Plans for the establishment of a quality boarding and day school for girls in El Paso were begun in 1910 as a result of a meeting of leading citizens. Through their efforts, a joint stock company was formed and classroom space was leased in houses on Terrace Street. The El Paso School for Girls opened on Sept. 10, 1910, with 18 students. Ora W. L. Slater and Olga E. Tafel served as associate principals. With increased enrollment, plans were soon begun for the construction of new facilities at this site. The land was provided by Paul Harvey and Paul D. Thomas, owners of the Terrace Street property. The first building, completed in 1917, was a three-story residence hall with one-story classroom additions. In 1927 Dr. Lucinda de Leftwich Templin of Missouri became principal. Faced with the school's large debt, she persuaded her friends George A. and Julia Brown Radford of Webster Groves, Missouri, to pay off the mortgage and incorporate the institution. Renamed for the Radfords, the school experienced new growth. Now a leading college preparatory school, it has produced many prominent women leaders, including Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman justice of the United States Supreme Court. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chamizal National Memorial — 2.1 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 3.2 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 9.6 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 10 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.

More markers nearby

• Hendricks-Laws Sanatorium / Roger Bacon Seminary — 0.3 mi
• Fort Bliss, C.S.A. — 0.7 mi
• John Wesley Hardin — 1.1 mi
• Mabel Welch — 1.1 mi