Site of Booker T. Washington School

A history written in 1994 by Tom Scott says the first school for Black students stood on Franklin Street, burned about 1896, and was replaced on land the city's trustees bought for $200 from Berry Stone and William Johnson. Enrollment jumped from 40 in November 1904 to 179 a month later, which Scott suggests reflected children returning after the cotton harvest. A $50,000 bond election in 1928 paid for the new brick building, and a Rosenwald grant followed in January 1929. The Class of 1966 was the last to graduate, and the school closed the next year.

What the plaque says

Site of Booker T. Washington School According to local tradition the Bonham Colored School began in a one-room structure in northwest Bonham in the early 1890s. Enrollment in the 4-teacher school grew from 40 pupils in 1904 to 216 in 1911. By 1920 the school offered 11 grades and was called Booker T. Washington. A new school complex, funded in part by the Rosenwald Foundation, was built on 10 acres here in 1928; Ray Seay served as principal. The school expanded to 12 grades in 1940. Until 1966, when it closed due to school integration, the school served as a focal point for Bonham's entire African American community. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 2.6 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 29 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• Inglish Cemetery — steps away
• Dr. Daniel Rowlett — steps away
• Vicinity of Fort Inglish — 0.3 mi
• Site of Steger Opera House — 0.5 mi