John Scarbrough Armstrong was one of the major founders of the town and contents of Highland Park because he owned significant portions of the land that would become the town. In 1906, Armstrong purchased 1,400 acres of prairie land north of downtown Dallas. After his death on April 26, 1908, his widow and sons-in-law—Edgar Flippen and Hugh Prather—took over his work. On April 14, 1914, the newly incorporated town of Highland Park petitioned the Dallas County Judge to allow them to establish an independent school district. From 1909 until this time, children wishing to attend school had attended classes in a little red frame house operating under the name of "Highland Park School" that had been moved to the 4700 block of Abbott by community leader Michael Costello and a group of citizens. However, the judge granted the petition for an independent school district on May 5, 1914, and HPISD was born. Once the school district held an election for the first Board of Trustees, the Board began searching for a suitable location for the new school. Mrs. Alice Armstrong, widow of the late John S. Armstrong, generously donated the needed land in the area bounded by Cornell Avenue, Byron Avenue, and St. John's Drive in memory of her husband, thus helping found the HPISD and its first school, appropriately named Armstrong. The Board of Trustees approved $30,000 in bonds to build the new Armstrong School on July 16, 1914.