W. H. Adamson High School

For decades Adamson was a school for white students only. In the 1930s and 1940s it was one of six white high schools in Dallas, and Black teenagers in Oak Cliff were barred from it and from Sunset, riding instead to Booker T. Washington, Lincoln or Madison until Roosevelt High School opened in 1963. The 1924 Oak Cliff High football team won a state championship. Around 2009 the district planned to raze the building; alumni pressed for landmark status, which the City Council granted on June 8, 2011, the same month it was added to the National Register.

What the plaque says

W. H. Adamson High School IN 1891, THE NEWLY INCORPORATED TOWN OF OAK CLIFF VOTED TO SEEK BIDS ON A SCHOOL BUILDING. THE CORNERSTONE WAS LAID AT PATTON (THEN ST. GEORGE) AND 10TH STREETS FOR OAK CLIFF CENTRAL SCHOOL IN SEPTEMBER 1892 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE MASONIC GRAND LODGE OF TEXAS. DUE TO OVERCROWDING AT DALLAS HIGH SCHOOL, THERE WAS PRESSURE TO BUILD A NEW HIGH SCHOOL. A STATE-OF-THE-ART FACILITY WAS CONSTRUCTED IN 1915 AT THE CORNER OF 9TH AND BECKLEY. THE ORIGINAL BUILDING BECAME AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND WAS LATER TORN DOWN IN 1926. WHEN PRINCIPAL W.H. ADAMSON, FONDLY REFERRED TO AS "THE GRAND OLD MAN OF OAK CLIFF," DIED IN MAY 1935, THE SCHOOL BOARD VOTED TO RENAME THE SCHOOL FOR HIM. HE SERVED AS SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS AND PRINCIPAL FOR A TOTAL OF 34 YEARS. OVER THE YEARS, THERE HAVE BEEN ADDITIONS AND EXPANSIONS TO THE BUILDING, INCLUDING AN AUDITORIUM, GYM, AND EXTRA CLASSROOMS. TWO RENOVATIONS, MURALS ON THE SECOND FLOOR IN 1934 AND ADDITIONAL WINGS IN 1938, WERE COMPLETED THROUGH NEW DEAL PROGRAMS. THE PRESENT FRONT FAÇADE OF THE W.H. ADAMSON HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING REMAINS THE SAME AS IT HAS SINCE ITS OPENING WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE WINDOWS, WHICH WERE ORIGINALLY WHITE-PAINTED WOOD. OVER THE YEARS, W.H. ADAMSON HIGH SCHOOL HAS GRADUATED MANY NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL LEADERS AND SERVED AS A CENTER OF COMMUNITY ACTIVITY AND SUPPORT. IT IS ONE OF THE EARLIEST SCHOOLS IN DALLAS COUNTY AND IS THE OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY OPERATING HIGH SCHOOL IN THE DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT. THE INSTITUTION CONTINUES TO BE A HUB OF LEARNING IN ITS COMMUNITY AND REPRESENTS THE COMMITMENT OF THE AREA TO SECONDARY SCHOOL EDUCATION. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 2.4 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 — 2.8 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.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 3.1 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.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 4.0 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

• Officer J.D. Tippit — 0.2 mi
• Frank Reagh — 0.5 mi
• Dallas Zoo — 0.6 mi
• Colonel William G. Cooke — 0.6 mi