Site of Bay View College
Portland, San Patricio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
An important school of the coastal region, founded for scattered South Texas ranch children, by Thomas M. (1856-1943) and Alice Yantis Clark (1857-1913), of the family that founded Texas Christian University. The Clarks utilized 2-story "Hotel Portland", opened 1891 but soon idled by national business recession. With Mrs. Mollie Allen Turner as associate, they opened Bay View College in Sept. 1894, teaching primary through junior college subjects. Mrs. Clark, who also managed "The Home" for boarders, taught painting; Clark, music and literary subjects. Recreation included riding (on student-owned horses), house parties at patron George Fulton's Rincon Ranch (12 miles northeast), and an annual San Jacinto Day sail on Corpus Christi Bay. The first Bachelor of Letters degrees were awarded to a class of three: Wallace Clark, Lucille Long, Ed Rachal. In time, a 2-story boys' dormitory, a gymnasium, and a 2-story chapel stood on campus. Students came from 70 Texas counties, 12 other states, and Mexico. Some Bay View graduates went on to senior colleges and entered professions, many remained in ranching. In 1916 , a hurricane destroyed most of the buildings. A day school session was held the next winter in the chapel, but the college formally closed in 1917. (1973)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Opened in 1894 by Thomas M. and Alice Yantis Clark, of the family that founded Texas Christian University, Bay View College brought schooling to the ranch children scattered across South Texas. Housed in a former hotel, it taught everything from primary grades through junior college, drawing students from 70 Texas counties, a dozen states, and Mexico, with riding and bay sails woven into campus life. A 1916 hurricane wrecked most of the buildings, and the college closed the following year.
Why it matters
Bay View shows how families of educators carried formal learning into remote ranching country, giving frontier children a path to professions in an age before public schools reached everywhere.
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Related people
- · Thomas M. Clark
- · Alice Yantis Clark
- · Mollie Allen Turner
Themes & tags
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