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William 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 |
