Education for local children of Mexican descent dates from 1889, when the former Methodist church became a schoolhouse. Named for longtime principal Jesse Blackwell, the school served hundreds of Hispanic children up to ninth grade. Students were told to speak only English on campus, and Spanish words written on slips of paper were buried on the grounds in a mock funeral ceremony. The school closed in 1965 with integration of Marfa schools. The building sat vacant until preservation efforts by the Blackwell School Alliance, formed in 2006. The one-story schoolhouse has a modified hip roof, front-gabled entry, and plastered 24-inch thick adobe walls on a stone foundation.