Austin College Building
Huntsville, Walker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Presbyterian Church established Austin College in Huntsville in 1849 and erected this structure in 1851-52. Austin College moved to Sherman in 1876, and in 1879 this building was deeded to the state for use by the newly-established Sam Houston Normal Institute (now Sam Houston State University). The Greek revival-era building features a three-bay front facade, two-story portico, and Doric columns. A third floor, added in 1882, was removed in 1926-27.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Presbyterian Church founded Austin College at Huntsville in 1849 and put up this Greek Revival building in 1851–52, its two-story portico and Doric columns announcing higher learning on the antebellum frontier. When the college relocated to Sherman in 1876, the structure was deeded to the state for the new Sam Houston Normal Institute — a teachers' college that grew into today's Sam Houston State University.
Why it matters
This single building links the earliest college in Texas to the rise of public teacher training, tracing the roots of higher education in the state across half a century.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the Presbyterian Church founded Austin College in Huntsville in 1849, Texas had been a state for only a few years. The Republic had folded into the Union in 1845, the war with Mexico had just ended, and settlers were pouring into East Texas's piney woods and river bottoms. Towns like Huntsville were still new, and most people living there had grown up somewhere else.
Higher education on that frontier was mostly a matter of faith and determination. There was no state university yet. Churches filled the gap: Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists each wanted schools to train ministers, teachers and community leaders. A college meant more than classes. It told everyone, locals and newcomers alike, that the town meant to last.
Building this structure in 1851-52 was a big step for a young institution. The builders chose Greek Revival, the most popular style in America before the Civil War. Across the country it stood for learning, civic virtue and the democratic ideals people linked with ancient Greece.
The decades after the war were hard on many Southern institutions, and Austin College was no exception. By 1876 it had moved north to Sherman. Its old home in Huntsville soon found a second calling that would shape public education in Texas for generations.
People & events
The story starts with Presbyterian leaders who believed Texas needed an educated citizenry and an educated clergy. They set up the college in 1849 and named it for Stephen F. Austin, the empresario who had brought Anglo-American colonists to Texas a generation earlier. Huntsville was also home to Sam Houston, hero of San Jacinto and a towering figure of early Texas, and he is remembered as one of the college's early supporters.
With this building's completion in 1851-52, the college had a real academic home: a two-story portico, sturdy Doric columns and a symmetrical three-bay front that looked every inch a seat of learning. For about a quarter-century, students climbed its steps. Then, in 1876, Austin College left Huntsville for Sherman in North Texas, where it still operates today.
The building didn't sit empty for long. In 1879 it was deeded to the state for the newly established Sam Houston Normal Institute. A normal school trained teachers, and Texas badly needed them to staff its growing public schools. The institute named for Huntsville's most famous resident grew over the decades into today's Sam Houston State University.
The building kept changing too. A third floor was added in 1882, probably to make room as the normal school grew, and was removed in 1926-27. That brought the structure back closer to its original Greek Revival lines. Few Texas buildings have served two such different institutions, one a church college and one a public teachers' school.
Its place in the American story
This building ties together two big threads in American education. The first is the wave of church-founded colleges that followed settlers west before the Civil War. From Ohio to Texas, denominations built small colleges as anchors of faith and civilization on the frontier. Many didn't survive. Austin College did, though it had to move to do so, and it is counted among the oldest colleges in Texas.
The second thread is the normal school movement. In the decades after the Civil War, states across the country began founding public institutions to train teachers, because universal public schooling only works if there are trained teachers to run the classrooms. Sam Houston Normal Institute was part of that national push, and it was among the earliest teacher-training schools in Texas.
This handoff from a private church college to a public teachers' institute mirrors a larger American shift. In the late 1800s, responsibility for educating ordinary citizens moved more and more from churches and private groups to the state. You can read that whole transition in one set of walls.
It also shows how Americans reused their landmarks. Rather than tear down a fine but outgrown building, Texas gave it new work, and a structure from the 1850s ended up anchoring a modern public university.
If you visit
The building stands in Huntsville on the grounds of what is now Sam Houston State University. Look first at the front: the two-story portico, the plain but dignified Doric columns and the balanced three-bay facade. Greek Revival architects prized symmetry and simplicity, and it shows.
As you take it in, try to picture the missing third floor that sat on top from 1882 until the 1920s. Its removal is why the building looks today much as its antebellum builders meant it to. It's a reminder that historic buildings have their own life stories, with additions and subtractions along the way.
Huntsville is closely tied to Sam Houston, who lived and died here, so the town makes a natural stop for anyone following the story of early Texas. The building pairs well with other Houston-related sites in town. It's an easy detour off the interstate between Houston and Dallas.
It's a working campus, so be respectful of students and classes. A quiet walk around the exterior, especially in the soft light of early morning or late afternoon, is the best way to appreciate a building that has watched more than 170 years of Texas students pass by.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Austin Hall
Huntsville, TX
Erected in 1851, Austin Hall was the first building of Austin College, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in Texas, and it served students continuously for a quarter century. After the college relocated, the hall passed to a private academy and then to the forerunner of Sam Houston State, keeping its doors open to learning. Its long educational service makes it a rare survivor of antebellum Texas academic life.
Peabody Library Building
Huntsville, TX
Built in 1902, this was the first building on its campus devoted entirely to being a library, blending classical and Romanesque revival styling. It rose with help from the Peabody Education Fund, the pioneering philanthropy that Northern banker George Peabody created after the Civil War to support Southern schooling. It served as a library until 1929 and has filled other academic roles ever since.
"Old" Main Building
Huntsville, TX
When Texas set out to train its schoolteachers, this was the first permanent building it erected for the purpose. Its cornerstone was laid in 1889 at the Sam Houston Normal Institute—chartered a decade earlier as one of the state's earliest teacher-training schools—and completed in 1891 with the institute's first library, eight classrooms, and a chapel. Governors, superintendents, and founding faculty gathered to mark its dedication.
St. James United Methodist Church of Huntsville
Huntsville, TX
Organized just after the Civil War to serve the newly freed people of Huntsville, this congregation—known as the Freedmen's Church—first worshiped in 1868 in a shared Union Church building on land donated by French merchant John Courtade. Its first trustees included Joshua Houston, the formerly enslaved man tied to Sam Houston's household, and the structure long doubled as a schoolhouse for Black children. Under the Rev. Lee, the first Black presiding elder, the church flourished, building a new belfried sanctuary in 1894.