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THE AUDITORIUM
After the arrival of many new families to Sugar Land in the early 1900's, the need for expanded school
facilities became apparent. By the school year of 1915-1916, Sugar Land had outgrown its traditional
two-room school house. The owners of Imperial Sugar Company including Sugarland Industries and
Sugarland Railway felt it was time to build a new school in its place. I. H. Kempner (1873-1967) and W.
T. Eldridge (1562-1932), founders of Imperial Sugar Company in 1907, were committed to developing the
finest school system possible in keeping with their desire to create a model "company town." The 1917
design of the first school "circle", featuring an auditorium, set the standard for quality education for
over forty years.
The auditorium, built in 1917, served as a social center for the Sugar Land community as well as a
meeting place for the school children. It is the oldest public building still in use in Sugar Land, now
serving as the auditorium for the Lakeview Elementary School of the Fort Bend Independent School
District.
Kempner and Eldridge selected M. R. Wood (1859-1941), a consulting engineer and chemist for the
Imperial Sugar Company and Sugarland Industries, to design the new Sugar Land school complex, In
preparation for the school project, Eldridge and Wood traveled to California to study the cottage type of
architecture that was popular at the time. (1) Wood returned to Sugar Land and designed a school
complex to fit the needs of the community. The cottage type building had been followed to a modified
degree in some schools, but Sugar Land was perhaps the only spot in Texas where it extended to the
entire school plant. (2) Sugarland Industries served as the contractor for the construction of the
school. (3) On June 16, 1939, Wood retired from the Imperial Sugar Company and Sugarland
Industries. (4) He also had served as the President and member of the Board of Trustees for nineteen
years. On July 27, 1939 a plaque in his honor was placed on the front of the auditorium. (5) He
moved to Donna, Hidalgo County, Texas, where he died on April 12, 1941. (6)