South Park High School

The third floor of this building was unused when South Park Junior College opened there on September 17, 1923, with about 125 students and 14 teachers. Enrollment reached 280 by 1928, which the school said made it the largest junior college in Texas. On August 20, 1932, the board renamed it Lamar College after a public contest, won by Otho Plummer with a 100-word essay for a $100 scholarship. Voters approved a separate college district in 1940, and in 1942 the college moved to its own campus.

What the plaque says

South Park High School Built by the South Park Independent School District in 1922-1923, this structure also housed classes of South Park Junior College for ten years. Renamed Lamar Junior College in 1932 and Lamar University in 1971, the college institution moved to its own campus in 1942. South Park High School remained at this location until 1986, when it was merged with West Brook High School and this facility became a junior high school. South Park High School represents both the past and future of education in Beaumont. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 0.8 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.
• McFaddin-Ward House — 3.5 mi
  A Beaux-Arts Colonial Revival mansion finished in 1906 and lived in by one family for 75 years, with free guided tours of three furnished floors, the carriage house and gardens.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 15 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Village Creek State Park — 15 mi
  A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.

More markers nearby

• The Lucas Gusher — 0.8 mi
• Site of Santa Anna — 1.7 mi
• Harry James' Childhood Homesite — 1.9 mi
• Jean Baptiste Chaison — 2.2 mi