DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the voice along for the ride. Now, if you want to talk about schools that have seen a thing or two, pull over and lend me your ears, because the Old Cumberland Hill School in Dallas County has got a story that stretches back before the bricks were even laid. Before there was a brick building at all, there was a school on this very site — organized by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Dallas, back before the Civil War.
That's right, this ground was already in the business of education before the nation tore itself apart and stitched itself back together. So when 1888 rolled around and they finally put up a Victorian brick building — one of the first brick schools in the entire Dallas system, mind you — they weren't starting something new. They were honoring something old.
Now picture that building in its early decades. You'd stand out front in the morning and watch the children arriving, and they weren't exactly walking up dusty roads with holes in their shoes. No, these students came rolling in on handsome carriages.
Handsome carriages, plural. Dallas was putting on a little bit of a show, and this school was right in the middle of it. But here's where the story gets its real texture.
As the years turned, the student body began to change. Children arrived from many different nationalities — wave after wave, background after background — until the school earned itself a nickname that says everything you need to know in just two words: the Melting Pot School. That nickname didn't come from a committee or a proclamation.
It came from the life being lived inside those Victorian walls. And the building wasn't done giving yet. From 1963 to 1969, Old Cumberland Hill shifted its purpose one more time, housing a progressive vocational center that taught construction trades to the citizens of the area.
Think about that — a building that started as a church school before the Civil War, that watched generations of Dallas children grow up within its walls, spent its later years teaching people how to build things. Some places just refuse to stop working.
What the marker says
Old Cumberland Hill School One of the first brick schools in Dallas system, this Victorian building was constructed in 1888 on the site of a pre-Civil War school organized by Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Dallas. In early decades this school drew pupils from several areas. Many students arrived each day in handsome carriages. In later times the student body came from many different nationalities, giving rise to nickname "Melting Pot School." From 1963 to 1969 the building housed a progressive vocational center, teaching construction trades to citizens of area. 1971