About Us Home

Collinsville is a small town of 1,500 people located about 70 miles due north of Dallas, Texas.Around the time it became a town, Collinsville formed Texas' first "Free" school.The school was started by Mrs. Lodoweska (Lodi) Collins (where the name "Collinsville" was acquired) in a one-roomed log cabin.

With the population quickly growing, a new school was formed in 1904.This was a large two storied building with six rooms and could hold about four hundred students. "Collinsville Academy", as it was called, offered subjects such as Greek, metaphysics, and mental physics.During this time, Collinsville was becoming a well-known marketplace. Alfred Collins (Lodi's son) gave land to start and grow the community.Horatio Waldo also gave land to settlers and to start businesses. Collinsville looked as if it were going to be a big city. The Great Depression and World War II were two factors that caused Collinsville's population to dwindle.

In 1941 after the Collinsville Academy was demolished, a two-winged, twenty room school was built by a government program (WPA) designed to provide jobs to people and help end the Depression. This building with an extension is still in use as our elementary school.In 1995 a new high school/junior high school was constructed on the northeast section of town. This facility continues to function as the secondary campus today.

Collinsville has remained a small, quiet town over the years. However, Collinsville is starting to see a lot of growth as it looks forward to the future.

Below are a few documents that were complied for historical purposes. The content is made up of articles from some no longer existing newspapers, a few still in print and various authors.These have been scanned and are here for archival purposes only. If you are one of the original copyright holders and feel a violation exists please contact us and we will remove that section. Thank you to Ken Kemp, James Moats and Ty Hill for gathering  and organizing this information for the Collinsville ISD website.