The University Tradition in Nacogdoches
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Spanish friars who built the Mission of Our Lady of Nacogdoches passed to the townspeople a sense of scholarship and educational responsibility. Prominent citizens such as Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk were well known for their attention to education. Town citizens pursued the establishment of a university in the 1840s. The Republic of Texas granted a charter for a school in February 1845. Nacogdoches University was a preparatory school with some college subjects included in the curriculum. Townspeople gave money, materials, land and labor to support the school and secure for their children the best education possible. The school moved into its permanent home on Washington Square in 1858. Hard times began with the Civil War; later, several entities operated the institution, including the Catholic church, local Masons, and Keachi College of Louisiana. In 1904, the trustees deeded the campus to the newly created public school district of Nacogdoches. Citizens began a movement in 1906 to lobby for the formation of a new college. This culminated in the first, although ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to establish an east Texas normal school in 1915. When legislation in 1917 called for a college "east of the 96th meridian," Nacogdoches organized a citizens' committee. A pamphlet entitled "twenty-three reasons why Stephen F. Austin State Normal College ought to be located at Nacogdoches..." stated their case. As they had 70 years earlier, the people of Nacogdoches lobbied heavily for the new college, pledging 208 acres of land, 250 students, paved streets, and free electricity to the institution. When the opening was postponed from the summer of 1923 to the fall, the two recruited students from all of east Texas and even supplied a temporary home for a year -- Washington Square. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Nacogdoches inherited a sense of scholarly duty from the Spanish friars of its mission, and prominent citizens like Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk championed learning. The Republic of Texas chartered Nacogdoches University in 1845, and townspeople gave money, land, and labor to build it, moving the school to Washington Square in 1858. Through Civil War hardship and changing hands among churches and colleges, the town's devotion to education persisted—culminating decades later in its successful campaign to win Stephen F. Austin State Normal College.
Why it matters
The marker traces an unbroken thread of civic commitment to education, from a frontier republic's university to a modern state college, showing how a community repeatedly willed learning into being.
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Related people
- · Sam Houston
- · Thomas J. Rusk
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pioneering Higher Education in East Texas
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In the early 20th century, East Texas had no institution to train its teachers, and makeshift "normal institutes" struggled to lift the education of rural instructors—nearly a quarter of whom had not finished high school. As new state laws mandated compulsory schooling and teacher certification, demand for trained educators soared. After years of legislative and political delay, Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College opened in 1923 with 24 hand-picked faculty, drawing students overwhelmingly from the surrounding counties.
Alton W. Birdwell
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Born in the Piney Woods in 1870, Alton W. Birdwell rose from home schooling and brick-molding labor to become one of East Texas's foremost educators, studying at several universities and teaching across the region. Appointed founding president of Stephen F. Austin State Normal School in 1917, he opened the college in borrowed facilities when construction lagged, personally chose its faculty, and guided it through the lean years of the Great Depression. He remained tied to the institution as president emeritus until his death in 1954.
Paul Lewis Boynton
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Rusk Building
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Rising on land once part of statesman Thomas Jefferson Rusk's homestead, the Rusk Building was completed in 1926 to serve the fast-growing Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College. Designed by architect W. E. Ketchum in a dignified classical revival style—Doric columns, a grand staircase, and a pedimented entry—it first housed the library, the education and business departments, and a demonstration school for training teachers. Over the decades it sheltered a shifting mix of academic programs and administrative offices, and a 1987 renovation restored its original grandeur.