Photo by Victoria Hernandez.
The Oct. 24 permit request to demolish the former campus of W. H. Adamson High School has been withdrawn by Dallas Independent School District. This follows the publication of an opinion piece from The Dallas Morning News that reported the poor state of Oak Cliff’s first high school.
The former campus of W. H. Adamson High School became an official Dallas landmark 14 years ago and then later was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the campus hosts boarded-up windows and a formerly spray paint covered Texas Historical Commission sign.
The state of and the future of the Old Adamson campus has been up for debate for decades.
As of June 2009, the Oak Cliff Advocate reported that Dallas ISD previously planned to rebuild the 1915 school into a modern campus. This was met with backlash from Adamson alumni that claimed the school is “an architectural gem” that should just be fixed and updated for students.
Two months later in August 2009, the Adamson Alumni Association made efforts to receive a designation as a historical site, a goal that was realized in 2011.
“We’re going to fight the fight to keep the building from being demolished,” alumni association president John Ruiz said in an Oak Cliff Advocate article.
In January 2023, Old Adamson campus was set to begin construction to become a Choice School focusing on creative and digital arts with the aim to open for students by the Fall 2024 semester. Structural issues were found at the school in September 2023 that left the future of the campus in limbo.
“We’ve been actively working on solutions for W. H. Adamson for the past 18 years,” Dallas ISD director of construction and design Kathleen Lenihan said at the Landmark Commission Meeting on May 5, 2025.
Lenihan also raised concerns about structural issues found within Old Adamson including foundation issues and a lack of continuous bond beam of the facade. Work was halted because it posed a safety hazard.
“Student, staff and public safety is our mandate and our priority so we’re here to respectfully request that you allow us to pursue a solution where we repurpose this as a public park that celebrates the historic significance of the school, the community, the alumni and the architecture itself,” she said.
The Dallas Landmark Commission was previously scheduled to discuss the demolition permit at the Dec. 1 meeting. Once again, the future of Old Adamson is uncertain but for now the campus remains intact.
