On the morning of September 21, 1989, the Alton bus crash occurred; one of the school district's buses was struck by a Dr. Pepper truck owned and operated by Valley Coca-Cola, in Alton, Texas. After impact with the truck, the school bus left the roadway and plunged into a caliche pit filled with water. Twenty-one students died in the accident and another sixty were injured. Alton Memorial Junior High School was named after this tragedy to remember the lost twenty-one students.