Early education in the area included an 1850 one-room log cabin in the Hawkins settlement, serving as a school and church. Its location was where South 14th Street in Midlothian is now. The Hawkins settlement was later named Lebanon. A new school began in Midlothian upon its founding. Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad president George B. Sealy donated block 59, at the intersection of West Avenue F (College Street) and North 1st Street, for educational purposes. Professor William Works opened the Polytechnic Institute there with 40 students.
Public schools were at the southeast corner of South 2nd Street and West Avenue H. The campus gradually expanded eastward and is now called the J.R. Irvin Campus. The frame schoolhouse there burned in 1893, and students finished the year attending classes in the Methodist and Presbyterian churches. The Midlothian Independent School District formed in 1906. A new two-story brick schoolhouse, designed by C.H. Page of Austin, was completed in 1907. African American students were taught at a separate campus, later named the Booker T. Washington School, before integration.
As enrollment grew, additional buildings included a grammar school with auditorium (1915) and an elementary school (1920), donated by Tom and Mattie Dees, whose daughter, Dell Mason Dees, had died of measles at age three. A stadium near the east end of East Ohio Street was the home field for Midlothian Panthers Football and baseball games. Other longstanding traditions included the May Fete, begun in 1920 by the Parent Teacher Association as their primary fundraiser. Enrollment has continued to grow, and more than a century after its founding, Midlothian Independent School District continues to educate and train leaders of tomorrow. (2018)
Marker is Property of the State of Texas