Thornton Schools

Thornton took its name from John E. Thornton, an early settler, according to the Handbook of Texas, and Cain Hogan settled on Steele Creek just west. The post office opened in 1873. Wilson Brothers ran a mercantile business, and local kaolin was made into ceramics. Masonic Lodge No. 486 was chartered in 1878 with thirty-two members. Thornton incorporated in 1907 with W. C. Cayton as mayor. On February 10, 1918, Cyrus F. Smythe landed the town's first airplane, flying in from Houston. By 1931 it counted 739 residents and thirty-five businesses.

What the plaque says

Thornton Schools Thornton was established in 1871 by the Texas Central Railroad and had a post office by 1873. By 1880, the town had approximately 200 residents and three churches, as well as several businesses and a Masonic lodge. Early schools included the Thornton Male and Female Institute, founded in 1877 by physician and teacher Edward Coke Chambers. The Institute, known also as Thornton College, included a wood-frame classroom building, student housing and Chambers' home. The school received its charter in 1881 and in 1884 merged with the school of Henry P. Davis. In 1889, Chambers sold the Institute to Davis, who continued to operate the school until 1891, when he sold it to the newly formed Thornton Independent School District. In 1903, a storm destroyed the school building, and in 1920, the second school building burned. The third schoolhouse, built of brick, was completed in 1921. During the 1930s and 1940s, several rural districts consolidated with Thornton, including all or part of Mill Creek, Prairie View, Pleasant Grove, Davis Prairie, Beulah and Eutaw Springs common school districts. In the early 1960s, with a declining student population, Thornton began to close its schools. African American students, who had for many years attended a Rosenwald School on Ellis Street, began traveling to Groesbeck for classes, as did the high school students from the White campus. In 1965, Thornton consolidated completely with the Groesbeck Independent School District, stipulating in the transfer that the main school building and grounds at this site be deeded to the city for use as a community center. (2004)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Fort Parker — 10 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 15 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.

More markers nearby

• Home County of Lafayette Lumpkin Foster — 7.8 mi
• First Baptist Church of Groesbeck — 8.0 mi
• Eutaw — 8.1 mi
• Site of Old Potter's Shop — 8.5 mi