Isaac Herbert Kempner
Kempner High School
A noted industrialist and philanthropist, I. H. Kempner was instrumental in founding the community which eventually became Sugar Land. As co-partner of Imperial Sugar Company and Sugarland Industries, Kempner was also instrumental in providing education for the town’s residents. In 1916, Sugar Land had outgrown its one-room school house, which prompted Kempner to send his chief engineer to California to inspect a model, small-town school and buy the plans. Completed in 1918, the facility was a unique education/civic center of 11 separate Spanish-style buildings, equipped with 10 classrooms, home economics laboratory, 600-seat auditorium, a moving picture screen and a projection booth. Imperial Sugar Company and Sugarland Industries subsidized these facilities because of minimal available educational funds from county and state. However, Sugar Land quickly outgrew its school and in 1932 Kempner’s company built a second 11-building unit with distinctive feature such as a gymnasium, indoor tile swimming pool and a complete chemistry laboratory.