Site of Cheston L. Heath School

Site of Cheston L. Heath School. . , The Corpus Christi Independent School District hired Miss Rose Dunne to teach English and academics to the city's Mexican American students in a year-long experimental program in 1896. Miss Dunne and her pupils were so successful that in 1901 the school district purchased property on this site from pioneer citizen S. W. Rankin. Plans for the new two-story wooden building were drawn up by Alfred Giles of San Antonio. Miss Dunne married E.J. Shaw in 1900 and temporarily retired from teaching in 1902, the same year that Julia Pena became the first Mexican American student to graduate from the program. By 1913, 250 students were enrolled in the thriving school. In 1917 the parent-teacher organization of the Mexican American school and Mrs. Shaw requested that the school board name the building for former school board member Cheston L. Heath (d. 1918) in recognition of his generosity to Mexican American students. Rose Shaw became principal of the Heath School in 1926. A new building was erected in 1927 to house the growing number of students. During the 1930s enrollment was so high that there were 400 students in the fourth grade alone. Mrs. Shaw operated a soup kitchen for her pupils during the difficult economic times of the Great Depression., School enrollment skyrocketed throughout the city during the post-World War II baby boom, causing expansion in the district. The Cheston L. Heath School continued to be used by most of the area's Mexican American students until it was closed in 1968 and the students were integrated into the other district schools. In the next few years the building housed adult education classes and television studios. The school district sold the land in 1973 and it became the site of the Nueces County Courthouse.