The History of Roland Plunkett Harris Elementary School
A questioned was asked by the Superintendent of Schools Dr. Saavedra on his visit to our school. Who was Roland P. Harris, the man whose name that is on our school building? We searched the internet under Who’s Who in Houston, the City of Houston and finally Jacinto City, but could not find a thing. We called HISD information and they suggested that we contact Library Services, Board Services, and Instructional Media. The hunt for Roland P. Harris was on. In the past the school had kept scrapbooks of the history of this school, but it was all in pictures. We were down to our last two books and we found two new paper articles, one from the Houston Chronicle dated May 8, 1960 and the other from The Sentinel dated May 5, 1960 which was the school dedication.
The Harris Family had lived on the land our school sits on for six generations, since 1826. William Plunkett Harris founded Harrisburg with his brother John Richardson Harris, more than 130 years ago. That was ten years before the Allen brothers created a tent-town in the mud of Buffalo Bayou and called it Houston. Harris County is also named after the Harris brothers who dreamed of building Harrisburg into a great port. Harrisburg was a thriving frontier town when the Texas Revolution broke out. After the Battle of San Jacinto, the two brothers Augustine and John Allen attempted to buy land in Harrisburg from the Harris family, but said their price was too high and moved up farther up the Bayou. Harrisburg faced extinction as it was engulfed by the growing of Houston. The Harris family stayed on and kept Mexican land grant titles to thousand of acres. William Plunkett left his land to his son Glenn, when Glenn died his holdings went to his son, Roland William Plunkett Harris and his sister. Roland Plunkett Harris ranched and developed Greens Bayou. He was a kind man, remembered for his secret philanthropies, a descendent of the founding fathers of Harrisburg. He died in 1937.
