Gainesville Junior College
Gainesville, Cooke County, Texas
Marker Inscription
With support from the Kiwanis Club and the Parent-Teacher Association, Randolph Lee Clark (1871-1941) began promoting the idea of a junior college upon his arrival in 1923 as superintendent of Gainesville's public schools. In May 1924, the city council authorized the creation of a college as part of the school system. The two-year institution opened the following September in the Newsome Dougherty Memorial High School Building. Initial enrollment at Gainesville Junior College was 32, with ten students in the first graduating class of 1926. World War II stimulated the development of an aeronautics program, and returning veterans took advantage of the college's first night classes. The curriculum initially consisted of academic courses that would transfer to four-year universities. Eventually, vocational and agricultural training programs, a division of continuing education, and cultural enrichment courses were added to expand the college's offerings. In 1960, Cooke County voters approved the separation of the college from the independent school district. In the ensuing decade, enrollment surpassed 1,000, and the campus of Cooke County Junior College (as it then was known) grew from one to eight buildings. Known as North Central Texas College since 1994 to reflect the school's presence beyond the boundaries of Cooke County, this institution is significant as the oldest, continuously operating, public two-year college in Texas. In 2000, it opened new campuses in the cities of Corinth and Bowie. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Championed by schools superintendent Randolph Lee Clark with backing from the Kiwanis Club and PTA, Gainesville Junior College opened in September 1924 inside the local high school, enrolling just thirty-two students. World War II spurred an aeronautics program, and returning veterans filled its first night classes as the curriculum broadened into vocational and continuing education. Separated from the school district in 1960 and renamed North Central Texas College in 1994, it endures as the oldest continuously operating public two-year college in Texas.
Why it matters
This campus marks the birth of Texas's public two-year college movement, a distinctly American experiment in bringing higher education within reach of an ordinary town.
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Related people
- · Randolph Lee Clark
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hubert H. Moss
Gainesville, TX
Born in Woodbine in 1892, Hubert H. Moss trained as a teacher, served in World War I, and returned to become a chemistry professor at the new Gainesville Junior College and a trusted student advisor. From 1946 until his death in 1952 he was Cooke County school superintendent, and as chamber of commerce president he campaigned for a reservoir to secure the city's water. Gainesville completed Hubert H. Moss Lake in 1966 on the very site he had recommended.
Clark, Randolph Lee (1871-1941)
Gainesville, TX
Randolph Lee Clark's life spanned the transformation of Texas from open range to modern schooling: a Fort Worth native, he cowboyed on the sprawling XIT Ranch before earning a degree at Add-Ran Christian University. He rose through the state's education offices and superintendencies, and after moving to Gainesville in 1923 he persuaded the city — with the Kiwanis Club's help — to open Gainesville Junior College in 1924. Active in state and national organizations, he became a recognized pioneer of the Texas junior college movement.
Booker T. Washington School
Gainesville, TX
Two years before Gainesville created a public school system, a young man named Island Sparks began teaching the city's Black children in 1880, and in 1886 the city built a frame schoolhouse for them on this site. Known first as the Gainesville Colored School, it took the name Booker T. Washington by the 1920s, and its original building was replaced by a WPA-built brick structure in 1939. Desegregation in 1965–66 brought its era as a Black school to a close.
Cooke County Free Library
Gainesville, TX
In 1913 Gainesville librarian Lillian Gunter and the women of the XLI literary club won a Carnegie grant to build a library, but Gunter's real crusade was bigger: she wanted library service for people living beyond city limits. Working with state representative George W. Dayton and the Texas Library Association, she helped pass the County Library Law in 1917, and by 1920 Gainesville had turned its library over to the county—creating one of the first county libraries in Texas.