In 1890, the Salado College Board of Trustees leased its building to Dr. S.J. Jones, who established a private high school named Thomas Arnold High School after the headmaster of a prestigious school in England. The school attracted students from across Central Texas and limited enrollment to 100 students. Dr. Jones, a respected leader and scholar, built the school's excellent reputation by emphasizing classical and scientific education, using the best teaching equipment in the state, and teaching Latin and Greek while serving as principal. On May 10, 1901, the school burned, but the planned graduation exercise still proceeded. By October 26, 1901, as a new building neared completion and the faculty stood ready to take over, another devastating fire consumed the structure. The community considered both fires suspicious, and some local citizens believed arsonists who harbored a grudge against Salado were responsible. After rebuilding, Thomas Arnold School continued until Dr. Jones retired in 1913. Enrollment then declined, and the school closed in 1918, after which the grounds and building became a free public school. In 1924, the building burned a third time and remains in ruins. Among its students was Nannie Poteet, a 1901 graduate and the eighth of nine children, who learned to express herself eloquently in the school's classical writing style, wrote stories and poems for family and friends, traveled extensively, played flamenco guitar, painted, and was known as a crack shot with a gun. She married her classmate Edgar Griffith, the class president, and they raised six children on a farm near Salado.