Buckner Children's Home-- Dallas TX
N 32° 47.375 W 096° 41.088
14S E 716812 N 3630333
WPA writers visited Dallas, and wrote about the Buckner Children's Home, still serving children and families in 2017
Waymark Code: WMV1ET
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 02/07/2017
Views: 4
The waymark coordinates are for the state historic marker at the entrance to what the WPA writers knew as the Buckner Children's Home, but what we in Dallas knew as the Buckner Baptist Home or the Buckner Orphanage. The statue of the founder referenced by the WPA writers is accessible to those who are living here at the home campus, or to those who have official business at Buckner Children's and Family Services (the modern name of the Buckner Children's Home), but not to the general public.
The campus is closed, for the protection of the children who live here. The friendly guard at the post invited us to take a photograph of the marker, but explained that he could only let us onto the campus at the invitation of a staff member.
Blasterz have a good friend who lived in the Buckner Children's Home in the 1960s-70s. She says they were always kind to her there, and saved her life.
The Buckner Children's and Family Services campus is located on Buckner Blvd 1 block south of the I-30 (former I-30 Turnpike) in east Dallas.
From Texas: A Guide to the Lone Star State:
"13. BUCKNER'S ORPHANS HOME (open daily except Sat.), E. Pike and Buckner Blvd., occupies a tract of more than 2,000 acres. There are 20 red brick buildings in uniform Georgian style with red tile roofs and white stone trim. The institution, which admits boys and girls of any or no religious faith, is maintained by endowment, private contributions, and the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and has cared for some 45,000 orphans during the 6o-odd years of its existence, having 647 residents in 1940. It supplies both vocational training and academic education, and operates a scientifically cultivated farm and modern dairy. The Reverend Robert Cooke Buckner, a Baptist minister, established it in a rented cottage in Dallas in 1879; it was moved to its present location in 1880. Since that time it has been continuously under the direction of Robert Cooke Buckner and his two sons. The Home rendered an important service in caring for children orphaned by the Galveston storm in 1900. A bronze statue of the founder stands in the middle of the central plaza on the campus."
Book: Texas
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 241
Year Originally Published: 1940
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