Clarksville Colored School

For many years after its founding, the community of Clarksville lacked a formal school. Initially, elementary age children were educated in the back of the home owned by Elias and Maggie Mayes. The couple built their home on land they purchased from Charles Clark. Elias Mayes served in the Texas House of Representatives.

At some point, the school moved out of the Mayes’ home and into a more formal location at Sweet Home Baptist Church. There were breaks in the Spring and the Fall during harvest times so students could work with their families and help generate more household income.

In 1917, the Austin Independent School District (AISD) built the Clarksville Colored School, a one-room elementary school. Its construction was not without controversy because residents living in the Enfield area, an affluent white neighborhood, opposed it. They wanted the AISD to build an elementary school in east Austin, where a high school for Black students was already located, because they believed that doing so would encourage Clarksville’s Black families to move east. Opposition to construction of the Clarksville Colored School was a precursor of what was to come – the adoption of the City Plan in 1928, which made official the policy that Black people living in west Austin should move east to a Black District.

The Clarksville Colored School operated until 1965 when it was closed because the Austin public school system had finally become fully integrated. At this point, Clarksville children were able to attend Mathews Elementary on West Lynn and the AISD demolished the Clarksville Colored School building.

Mary Baylor Clarksville Park is now located where the school was located. Its address is 1811 West 11th Street. There is a State of Texas historic marker at the park, which summarizes the history of Clarksville.