Education in Marfa for children of Mexican descent dates from the 1880s, and is commemorated today in the historic school house built in 1909.
 
Mexican American students in Texas were not separated from their Anglo counterparts by state law like African American students were. Instead, Texas school districts established separate elementary schools for Mexican American children through the practice of de facto segregation.

In Marfa, where the majority of the population was Hispanic, that school was the Blackwell School. Blackwell closed in 1965 when a new elementary school opened and Marfa’s schools achieved integration.