Guinn, James E., School
1200 South Freeway, Fort Worth, TXKnown as the Southside Colored School until 1917, the James E. Guinn School currently consists of three buildings that date from 1927 to 1954. The James E Guinn School exemplifies the struggle of the black community to provide adequate educational facilities from the founding of the Southside Colored School in the 1890s through the struggle for integration in the 1950s and 1960s. The Guinn School (1927 to 1954) meets Criterion A in the area of Education at the local level of significance for its role in educating African American children in Fort Worth. The Guinn School also meets Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance as a representative example of school architecture and campus development by Fort Worth architecture firms headed by Wiley G. Clarkson, Elmer G. Withers and Wyatt C. Hedrick. The period of significance extends to 1954 to include the 1953-54 Gymnasium/Shop Building, designed by prominent Fort Worth architect Wyatt C. Hedrick and built just prior to the integration of Fort Worth schools in the 1950s and 1960s. Its integral historic and architectural relationship to the school complex therefore supports Criteria Consideration G for properties that have achieved significance within the last fifty years.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.