Woodrow Wilson High School

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas County. Now, east Dallas was growin' — and when a city starts growin', it starts needin' things. Schools, for one.

So between 1927 and 1928, they built one. Not just any school, mind you, but the seventh high school in the entire city of Dallas. Number seven.

And they did not cut corners on the way it looked. This was the era of period revivals in American architecture — the 1920s had a certain ambition about them — and Woodrow Wilson High School came out of that moment wearing the full Jacobethan Revival style like it had somewhere important to be. Now, Jacobethan is exactly what it sounds like: a blend of Jacobean and Elizabethan influences, all that old-world English grandeur transplanted to east Dallas, Texas.

The building makes sure you know it. Prominent entry bays draw your eye straight to the front. Stone detailing runs through the structure with the kind of patience that says somebody cared how this thing would age.

And age it has — carrying generations of students through its doors and out into the world. Business, politics, science, sports, the arts — the marker says graduates of this school have found their way into all of it. Successful careers, plural, across every field you can name.

That's the kind of record a building earns by being more than a building. It becomes the place where the story started.

What the marker says

Built in 1927-28 to serve the growing student population in east Dallas, this was the seventh high school in the city. An important example of the period revivals which characterized architecture of the 1920s, this structure reflects the Jacobethan Revival style. Outstanding features include prominent entry bays and stone detailing. Many of the school's graduates have enjoyed successful careers in business, politics, science, sports, and the arts. RTHL - 1989