Prairie View A&M University
Prairie View, Waller County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Authorized by the Texas legislature in 1876, the "Agricultural and Mechanical College for Colored Youth" was Texas' second state-supported institution of higher learning. As a land grant college, it occupied a 1434-acre former slave plantation. Organized by the Texas A&M Board of Directors, Prairie View has remained a part of the Texas A&M system. The first eight students enrolled on March 11, 1878, but low enrollment caused the school to close. The following year the "Prairie View Normal Institute" was organized with emphasis on preparing teachers in trade and agricultural subjects. A coeducational college, Prairie View's enrollment of 16 soon reached 60. In ten years, industrial training was added to the curriculum. Intercollegiate athletics began in 1904. By 1931 the campus boasted 31 main buildings and 50 cottages. In 1934 the Southern Association of Schools granted a class "A" rating. In 1947 the institution became "Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical College". Integrated during the 1960s, the name changed to "Prairie View A&M University" in 1973. The University's motto is "Prairie View produces productive people".
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Authorized by the Texas legislature in 1876 as the "Agricultural and Mechanical College for Colored Youth," this land-grant school opened in 1878 on a 1,434-acre former slave plantation, making it Texas's second state college. After an early closure it reorganized as a normal institute to train Black teachers, then grew steadily into a full college by the 1930s. Integrated in the 1960s, it took its present name, Prairie View A&M University, in 1973.
Why it matters
As one of the nation's oldest historically Black land-grant universities, Prairie View has educated generations of Black teachers, professionals, and leaders.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jacob E. Freeman
Prairie View, TX
Born into slavery in Alabama around 1841 and brought to Texas as a boy, Jacob Freeman rose during Reconstruction to join a determined group of African American legislators. Representing Waller and neighboring counties, he served in the Texas House in the 1870s and remained active in Republican, Greenback, and third-party politics for decades. He worked amid violence and hostility to defend the civil and economic rights of Black Texans.
Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery
Prairie View, TX
This burial ground began on Jared E. Kirby's Alta Vista Plantation, where, by oral tradition, the Kirby family set aside land for the graves of enslaved people from Alta Vista and from cousin Leonard Waller Croce's nearby Liendo Plantation. Its many unmarked graves are believed to date to the antebellum years, when the enslaved rarely had means for lasting headstones. After emancipation the community kept using the site — Kirby's widow deeded the plantation in 1876 for what became Prairie View A&M University — and it took the name of the nearby Wyatt Chapel, holding the graves of former slaves, their descendants, and veterans of both World Wars.
Waller County
Hempstead, TX
Carved from Austin and Grimes counties in 1873, Waller County was named for Edwin Waller, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and first mayor of Austin. Its soil holds a dense history: the rich Groce plantations of 1831–1874, the later home of celebrated sculptor Elisabet Ney, and the railroad town of Hempstead that became the county seat. Since 1876 it has been home to Prairie View A&M, one of Texas's foundational institutions for Black higher education.
Norris Wright Cuney
Hempstead vicinity, TX
Norris Wright Cuney was born into slavery on a Texas plantation in 1846, sent north to school as a boy, and returned after the Civil War to build a wharf-contracting business in Galveston. He organized Black longshoremen into a labor association and rose to lead the Republican Party in Texas, serving as a city alderman, school board member, and U.S. Customs collector. When the party stripped his delegation of its seat in 1896, it silenced Black political power in the state for more than half a century.