History of Judson School District

As settlers moved westward, many planted roots in East Texas and established schools and churches. As far back as 1816, records show that an old road between Jefferson and the Trinity River in Dallas County passed through the communities of Tryon and Judson (Lawrenceville, as it was known at the time). Pay schools were established as early as 1847, but in 1893, the county commissioners divided Gregg County into eleven school districts.

In 1870, Mr. Wesley Stone gave each of his three daughters enough money to buy 1,000 acres of land if they would move their families west. The three sisters, Mrs. Hiram (Georgia Stone) Whatley, Mrs. Ann Renfro, and Mrs. Ellen McGrede moved their families to East Texas from Eufala, Alabama. They settled in the Lawrenceville Community, five miles north of Longview, Texas.

Lawrenceville had a school located 100 yard southwest of the scoreboard of the present Judson Middle School football field. A fence row and dirt mound is still present where the building stood. The land is currently owned by the L. L. Mackey family.

In 1884, several families obligated themselves to build a Baptist Church near or at the Lawrenceville schoolhouse. For ten years, the church members met at the schoolhouse for services. Mrs. Hiram Whatley named Judson Baptist Church after Adoriram Judson, the founded of the American Congregationalist and Baptist Foreign Ministry Societies. The community eventually became known as Judson, rather than Lawrenceville.

Three miles away to the northwest existed another school known as Harmony Grove. The land for this school was donated by D.G. Sparks. Later years saw the consolidation of Judson with this school (1939) and eventually, many others in the area.

Although this school is generally grouped with the oil field schools, probably less than one-fifth of Judson's area of 48 square miles was in oil bearing territory. Approximately 60 percent of the scholastic population lived in the strictly farming area.

In 1933, a block of 64 acres was purchased as a building site for brick structures. A part of this large new Judson campus was laid out for athletic fields.

In 1964, the Judson School District consolidated with the Longview ISD, and Judson High School became Judson Junior High School.