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.