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In 1890 people in the unincorporated area south of Fort Worth (among them ) started a campaign to be annexed. Fort Worth was glad to oblige and in 1891 created the Eighth Ward for Bacon Hill. In 1906 Fort Worth built a brick schoolhouse next to the 1888 wooden schoolhouse, and students voted to name their school in honor of Lorenzo de Zavala (interim vice president of the Republic of Texas).
In 1906 the Telegram reported that the new building “has been so constructed as to be perfectly lighted, rays falling over the left shoulder of each pupil at his desk” in each of the twelve classrooms.
The de Zavala school was under construction in 1905. It was designed by English-born architect S. Wemyss-Smith, who came to Fort Worth and served an apprenticeship under . Wemyss-Smith also designed the s Van Zandt Elementary School (1906). Wemyss-Smith would design the Oklahoma statehouse in 1914.
In 1914 another schoolhouse was built beside the 1906 de Zavala schoolhouse but faced , not Alston Street. The 1906 de Zavala school was demolished in the 1950s, but the 1914 building still stands.