In 1912, the town of Allensworth established its own school district. and the school was built at a cost of $5,000. The Allensworth schoolhouse was the largest building in town, representing the hopes and dreams that the residents had for their children. Considered the best school in the Central Valley at the time, the school had two classrooms, two cloakrooms, 2 dressing rooms and a stage. Colonel Allensworth’s wife, Josephine, was the first teacher at the school.

Named after Colonel Allen Allensworth, the first Black lieutenant colonel in the US Army, the site of the historic town of Allensworth is the the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, the only state park in California dedicated exclusively to preserving Black history. Founded by Professor William Payne, Dr. William Peck, J. W. Palmer, Harry Mitchell, and the Colonel, the goal was to create a new beginning, freeing black people from the Jim Crow laws of the South and proving that Black people could be, and would be, self-sufficient on their own. Colonel Allensworth dreamed of turning the town into an educational center and wanted to build “the Tuskegee Institute of the West.” and, based on the ideas of Booker T. Washington, proposed the creation of a Black polytechnic school in town. The idea, however, was rejected by the state legislature, because a school serving exclusively Black people was considered discriminatory under California law.

At its peak, more than 300 families called the town hope but after Colonel Allensworth was killed when he was struck by a motorcycle in 1914 and the river was dammed in the 1920s and the Pacific Farming Company failed to deliver water to the town, the population began to steadily decline. Even with these setbacks, the Allensworth School continued to provide an education for the remaining students until 1973.