Stephen J. Hay School

Hay began as a newsboy. Born in Griffin, Georgia, in 1864, he lost his father within six months and was tutored by his mother. After clerking in Atlanta and Denison he reached Dallas in 1887, kept books for two years, then became secretary and treasurer of Texas Paper Company in 1889. In 1907 the Citizens' Association Democrats put him forward for mayor, and he became the first under Dallas's commission form of government, a change he had worked hard to win. He preached lay sermons at Trinity Methodist, a church he helped found, and died in 1916.

What the plaque says

Stephen J. Hay School This site commemorates a significant civic and business leader. Georgia native Stephen J. Hay (1864-1916) migrated to Dallas in 1887 and became an executive of the Texas Paper Company. He served eight years on the Dallas Board of Education and in 1907 was the first mayor elected to a new mayor-council government that replaced the ward system. Hay was reelected in 1909, and as mayor he and four commissioners oversaw major city projects, including the first city plan, designed by George Kessler; passage of a bond election to help establish Southern Methodist University; and construction of White Rock Dam and Reservoir, the Houston Street Viaduct, and a new city hall, hospital and fire stations. Hay took a leading role in the development of modern Dallas and was later prominent in banking, insurance, and the chamber of commerce. Stephen J. Hay Elementary School, established here in 1921, initially consisted of frame classrooms and outhouses. A bond election paid for a new 16-room brick schoolhouse in 1926 planned by architect Thomas J. Galbraith and built by contractors Spearman and Sons. Galbraith designed residences and churches in Dallas, and schools in Royse City, Hillsboro, Coleman and Cuero. The Hay School building is a two-story red brick building with a center block and flanking wings, prominent Tudor Revival entrance, cast stone panels and quoins, and multi-light steel windows. The school was designed to accommodate 400 students, but enrollment dwindled to less than half its intended capacity by the 1960s. The school operated below capacity until 1978, when it became the site of Dallas I.S.D. offices. The building was later the first campus of the Irma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 2.4 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 2.8 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 3.5 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 3.9 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Cedar Springs — 0.6 mi
• The Crossroads — 0.7 mi
• Flippen Homestead and the Founding of Highland Park — 0.7 mi
• Oaklawn United Methodist Church — 0.8 mi