Lott Canada School

With few formal schools available, education for many African Americans in the 19th century came through church instruction. In 1876, the first African American school in Bee County began in Stephen Canada's store seven miles north of Beeville. The following year, Stephen Kennedy built a small frame schoolhouse. County commissioners granted Canada and Kennedy's petition to create "Colored Community School Twelve." Beeville provided separate schools for Caucasian, African American and Mexican American students. In 1908, Beeville school trustees bought land for a new African American school from R.H. and Clara Berry. In the frame schoolhouse completed on North Burke Street, prinicipal J.R. Lockett introduced courses in agriculture and science and matched the studies of other Beeville schools. A 1929 fire destroyed the building, and students were taught in temporary quarters near the Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church. Construction on a new school began in 1931. Financial assistance from the Julius Rosenwald fund of Chicago helped complete a brick schoolhouse with four classrooms and an auditorium. The school was named to honor Mose Lott and Allen Canada, carpenters who built the previous school which burned. The school offered ten grades, with additional years added through the 1940s. Gradual integration of Beeville schools began in 1955, with Lott Canada students attending A.C. Jones High School and the elementary school. In 1964, the Lott Canada School closed, though the school district continued to use the campus for other functions. The Lott Canada Alumni Association organized to preserve the heritage of African American education in Beeville. (2008)