Clifton College Administration Building
Clifton, Bosque County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Constructed in 1923 as the administration building for the Lutheran College of Clifton, this structure served students and faculty until 1954, when the school merged with Texas Lutheran College in Seguin. The building was sold in 1954 and housed the Gearench Manufacturing Company for 27 years. Featuring elements of Beaux Arts classicism, the structure is a fine example of early twentieth century institutional architecture. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1923, this Beaux Arts classical building anchored the Lutheran College of Clifton, a small church-affiliated school on the Texas prairie. It served students and faculty until 1954, when the college merged into Texas Lutheran College at Seguin. The handsome structure then found a second life as a manufacturing plant for the next 27 years.
Why it matters
Small denominational colleges like Clifton educated a generation of rural Texans and reflect the ambitions of immigrant Lutheran communities to build lasting institutions of learning.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Clifton Lutheran College
Clifton, TX
Founded in 1896 on land donated by Norwegian settlers N. J. Nelson and T. T. Hogevold, Clifton Lutheran College began as a high school built by volunteer labor and grew into a two-year college accredited in 1924 under Dr. Carl Tyssen. For a time it even housed pioneer Jacob Olson's collection of Norwegian-settler artifacts, a reminder of the immigrant community that built it. The high school closed in 1938, and in 1954 the college merged into Texas Lutheran College at Seguin.
St. James Episcopal Church
Meridian, TX
Local Episcopalians founded St. James in 1913, when charter members Dr. James Julius Lumpkin and his wife Ida Etoile donated the site and church officials consecrated the new building that year. The congregation served Meridian for decades, at times sharing its facilities with a Lutheran congregation, before declining membership led the Diocese of Fort Worth to donate the deconsecrated property in 1994. Its vernacular frame sanctuary shows Gothic Revival influences, with lancet windows and a gable-end entry beneath a segmented glass arch.
Rock Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Valley Mills, TX
The Rev. James B. Sadler, a self-educated former slave, gathered this Black congregation in 1870 and helped organize a separate Black Presbytery in 1876, worshiping in a brush arbor and homes until the present church was built in 1890. The building doubled for a time as a community school, and Sadler and his wife Susan owned the property until 1909. The congregation still tends the church and its cemetery and gathers each November for homecoming.
Coon Creek
Valley Mills, TX
The Coon Creek community grew out of the older Cyrus settlement, the earliest in southeastern Bosque County, where Temple Spivey bought Brazos River land in 1853. Within a few years John Jackson Smith established a plantation, a school opened in a one-room log cabin, and a shared cemetery took root. By 1883 the settlement split into Smith Bend and Coon Creek, and its school, church, and the two-story "Pie" Bonds house still knit the community together.