William B. Lipscomb Elementary School

The namesake came from a family of teachers. The school's own history calls William B. Lipscomb Jr. (1860 to 1899) a nephew of David Lipscomb, founder of the Nashville Bible School, now Lipscomb University. After his death his widow, Virginia, known as Jennie, was appointed one of this school's first principals and led it through its early decades. The building opened in 1921 near Swiss Avenue, and the district's account says it marked its centennial in 2021 under the portico of the original brick facade.

What the plaque says

William B. Lipscomb Elementary School This school, built in 1920 to relieve the crowded conditions of area schools, was named for early educator William B. Lipscomb. A Tennessee native (b. 1860), Lipscomb served as principal of Dallas High School from 1894 until his death five years later. The three-story structure, designed by architect Herbert M. Green and originally surrounded by over three acres of recreation grounds, boasts a facade trimmed with stone quoins and a basement wing with castellated stones revealing the date of construction. Two Gothic-style stone tablets adorn the two front entrances to display the school name. Since its official opening in 1921, the school has served as an educational and social center for the Swiss Avenue, Munger Place, and Junius Heights neighborhoods. Over the years the school's enrollment reflected its changing environment. Rapid urbanization in the 1920s gave way to economic woes in the Great Depression of the 1930s, followed by a surge of patriotic activity and wartime relief efforts during World War II. The post-war years brought decreased enrollment when many families began moving to suburbs, but subsequent decades have seen a renewed vitalization to the old school and neighborhoods. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fair Park — 1.8 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 2.0 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.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 2.9 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 — 2.9 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.

More markers nearby

• Swiss Avenue — 0.5 mi
• St. Matthew's Cathedral — 0.9 mi
• Grace United Methodist Church — 1.5 mi
• Baylor University Medical Center — 1.8 mi