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History on
a PinheadPowell
Point came by its name indirectly. A local school was situated on a land grant
awarded to one Elizabeth Powell. The school borrowed the name and after being
relocated, the community took the name of the school. Settlement dates prior to
the 1890s, but no history is available. The school merged with the Kendleton
ISD. The site remains on detailed county maps, but not the state map.
Powell
Point is on FM 2929 between Kendleton and East
Bernard. |
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Historical
Marker TextPowell
Point SchoolWilliam
E. Kendall, an Anglo lawyer from Richmond, Texas,
subdivided his plantation here into 100-acre farm tracts in 1869. He sold the
land exclusively to Freedmen and by the 1880s a distinctly African American community
named Kendleton had developed here.
In 1890 local A. M. E. churches built three one-room schools to form Common School
District No. 4, an all-African American district which included the original land
grant of Elizabeth Powell. Tellie B. Mitchell, a Kendleton
native and graduate of Wiley College (1903), returned to Kendleton
and established Powell Point School in 1904 in a two-room schoolhouse. The school
prospered and in 1918 graduated six students, five of whom went on to college
and became educators.
In 1923 Mitchell persuaded the Rosenwald Foundation
to grant funds to build a new Powell Point School facility here with six classrooms,
a library, and an auditorium. The school became a model institution and entry
into its student body was an advantage sought by African American throughout southeast
Texas. T. B. Mitchell served as school principal until 1954.
Powell Point,
today an elementary school, is a locally revered institution which symbolizes
Kendleton 's unique cultural heritage and promise
for the future.
Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995 |
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