Opened in 1886, the Mary Allen Seminary in Crockett once taught Black Texans etiquette, discipline, home economics, and agriculture. Now, it’s barely standing, held up by crumbling clay bricks and chipped, brittle wood. Tattered windows expose what’s left of the 48 original rooms. On the top floor, the crumbling roof has left the building almost completely open to the elements.
“It’s deteriorated so much that at this point, we are trying to preserve some of the things from it,” said Dr. Thelma J. Douglass of the Mary Allen Museum of African American and Arts Inc. (MAM) about the damage the building has received from negligence and major disasters. “But basically, it most likely will be something that has to be rebuilt … it’s a miracle that it still stands.”
