to the building on 21st and Ball Avenue. The main Ball High School building, remodeled and expanded still stands today and houses the home offices of the American Indemnity Company. New location Bill Cherry wrote in a 2004 Galveston County Daily News article that, by the 1950s, Ball High School "was not only horribly congested, but the building was in deplorable condition, the victim of years and years of deferred maintenance." In 1954, the Ball High School complex moved to its new location, constructed in 1952, at 41st street and Avenue O. This building cost $3.2 million and covered a four-square block area-41st to 43rd Streets and Avenue O to Avenue P. The new location received additions and renovations in 1964, 1974, 1981, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2004, and 2005. In the late 1960s, Ball high merged with Central High School, the first black high school in Texas, founded in 1885. This reorganization created the need for the expansion of the high school into the former Sam Houston Junior High School facility at 4116 Avenue N-1/2, two blocks from the main high school structure, at 4115 Avenue O, to create the two-campus Ball High School. The original campus is often referred to as Ball High South, while the former Sam Houston campus was familiarly known as Ball High North. Central school became a middle school. In the late 1970s, the Central school campus became an eight grade school which served exclusively eighth grade students throughout the school district. Years later, additional remodeling of the South campus combined with reduced enrollments resulted in consolidating the high school at one facility. The North campus reverted to an elementary school, renamed for the late Charles B. Scott, a long-time Ball High School counselor. In 1968 Central High School, the high school for African-Americans, consolidated into Ball High School. With the closure of Central High Ball High became a very early social experiment for complete school integration and busing. While there were rumblings in the community around the unacceptability of integration, integration worked at Ball High School. Much of the reason for integration's success was due to the success of the integrated athletics teams. Multiple conference and state titles were won during the early seventies and as a result the community rallied behind Ball High School quickly. Leadership on the sports teams was critical to assure that teammates stayed focused on winning and kept the