DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say — and this one deserves every word of it. For thirty years — nineteen hundred to nineteen twenty-nine — if you were a Black orphan child in the state of Texas, there was exactly one place in the whole state that called itself your home. One.
And it stood right here in Upshur County. The Dickson Orphanage. Named for the man who built it, W.
L. Dickson, a Negro Baptist minister who apparently decided that if nobody else was going to do this thing, he was. And here's something the marker makes a point of telling you: Dickson was the only superintendent that home ever had.
Thirty years. One man. You can let that settle.
The children who came here stayed until they turned twenty-one — unless a good family came along and adopted them, or took them in through indenture. The home gave them a place to grow. And somehow, in the middle of all that, those children gave something back.
A choir was formed — kids singin' their way across the region on good-will trips, raisin' funds to keep the whole operation alive. Think about that picture for a moment: orphan children, out on the road, holdin' the place together with their voices. Then came August of nineteen twenty-nine.
The home was deeded to the state of Texas — and with it came seven hundred acres of land and twenty-seven buildings. Twenty-seven. Whatever W.
L. Dickson had built up over those three decades, it was substantial. When the state took it, the name changed too — it became the Gilmer State Orphanage for Negroes.
That chapter ran until nineteen forty-three, when the children — about a hundred and eighty of them — moved to a state home in Austin. One minister. Thirty years.
Seven hundred acres. A choir on the road. And a hundred and eighty children who needed somewhere to be.
The marker doesn't editorialize much. It doesn't have to.
What the marker says
Only home in Texas for negro orphans for thirty years, 1900-1929. Founded by W. L. Dickson, Negro Baptist minister, only superintendent home ever had. Orphans remained here until they reached 21, unless adopted or indentured by good families. A choir of children made good-will trips to raise funds. In Aug., 1929, home was deeded to the state, together with 700 acres of land and 27 buildings. Name was then changed to the Gilmer State Orphanage for Negroes, which ran until 1943, when the children (about 180) moved to state home in Austin.