Wichita Falls Junior College
Wichita Falls, Wichita County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Although private junior colleges were operating in Texas before the 1900s, similar public institutions were not started until the 1920s. The first, Wichita Falls Junior College, began here in 1922, seven years before the adoption of related state legislation. Developed as part of the city school system under the direction of Superintendent Randolph Lee Clark, it opened with fifty-five students, ten teachers, and a curriculum of seven subjects. Early classes were held in the high school building at this site. Planning for a separate junior college campus began in 1928 when Burkburnett educational philanthropists John G. Hardin and his wife Mary offered a matching grant for construction of new facilities. Despite the economic depression of the 1930s, the necessary funds were raised and another site was donated by local residents W. B. Hamilton and N. H. Martin. Renamed Hardin Junior College in honor of the school's benefactors, the institution was relocated by 1938 when the new buildings were completed. In the 1940s the school became a state-supported four-year college. Renamed Midwestern University in 1950, it has been an instrumental factor in the growth and development of Wichita Falls. (1981)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Wichita Falls Junior College opened in 1922, it was the first public junior college in Texas — founded seven years before the state even passed enabling legislation. Begun within the city school system under Superintendent Randolph Lee Clark, it started with fifty-five students and ten teachers meeting in the high school. Philanthropists John G. and Mary Hardin funded a new campus, and the renamed Hardin Junior College grew into a state four-year school, becoming Midwestern University in 1950.
Why it matters
It pioneered the public two-year college in Texas, a distinctly American institution that opened higher education to ordinary working families.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1920s, Wichita Falls was a city in a hurry. Oil strikes across Wichita County in the preceding decade, above all the famous boom at nearby Burkburnett, had turned a modest North Texas railroad and cattle town into a place of fast money, new buildings and newcomers arriving by the trainload. A growing city needed more than derricks and banks. It needed people trained to run offices, teach classrooms and manage the businesses the boom had created.
The country was changing along with it. After World War I, more American teenagers than ever were finishing high school, and many of them wanted more schooling. A four-year university, often far from home and expensive, was out of reach for most working families. Educators around the nation had begun trying out a new answer: the junior college, which offered the first two years of college work close to home, often in buildings the town already owned.
In Texas, as the marker explains, junior colleges already existed, but only private ones, many of them run by churches. Public two-year colleges had no clear footing in state law. That is the setting in which a Wichita Falls school superintendent decided not to wait for Austin.
People & events
The story starts with Randolph Lee Clark, superintendent of the Wichita Falls city schools. Instead of lobbying for a separate institution, Clark built the college inside the public school system he already ran. In 1922 it opened in the high school building on this spot with fifty-five students, ten teachers and just seven subjects. It was small and improvised, and it worked. The state would not pass legislation dealing with public junior colleges for another seven years.
The next chapter belongs to John G. Hardin and his wife Mary, of nearby Burkburnett. The Hardins were educational philanthropists, and in 1928 they offered a matching grant toward buildings for a separate junior college campus. A matching grant only pays out if the community raises its share, and the timing was terrible: the Great Depression hit almost at once. Even so, the people of Wichita Falls raised the money, and local residents W. B. Hamilton and N. H. Martin donated land for the new campus.
The school took the name Hardin Junior College to honor its benefactors, and by 1938 it had moved into its new buildings and out of the high school. From there it kept growing. In the 1940s it became a state-supported four-year college, and in 1950 it was renamed Midwestern University. Today the same institution carries on as Midwestern State University, a direct descendant of that first class of fifty-five.
Its place in the American story
The two-year public college is one of America's most distinctive contributions to education. The idea was to put college within commuting distance of ordinary families, at public expense, and to let students start where they were. Over the twentieth century community and junior colleges became the entry point to higher education for millions of Americans, including veterans, first-generation students, and working adults trying to get ahead.
Wichita Falls Junior College is where that movement began in the public sector in Texas. By acting before the law caught up, the city showed there was demand and gave lawmakers a working example. Texas went on to build one of the largest community college systems in the country, and this high school site is one of its starting points.
It is also a story about how American towns built their own institutions. A superintendent's initiative, a couple's generosity and a community that kept fundraising through the Depression grew into a university. That pattern of local ambition, private gifts and eventual state support repeats in college towns all over the country.
If you visit
This marker commemorates a beginning more than a building. It stands where the college's first classes met in the city's high school, long before the school had a campus. Take a moment to picture fifty-five students and ten teachers sharing space with the high schoolers and trying something no public school in Texas had tried before.
To see how the story turned out, continue to the campus of Midwestern State University elsewhere in Wichita Falls. It is the institution that grew out of these first classes, the Hardin gift and the land donated in the 1930s. Seeing the modest starting point and then the mature university shows you almost a century of growth on a single drive.
Wichita Falls makes a good stop on a road trip across North Texas and the Red River country. The oil-boom history of Burkburnett, the town the Hardins called home, is close by, and it fills in the story of where the city's early wealth and ambition came from.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Randolph Lee Clark
- · John G. Hardin
- · Mary Hardin
Themes & tags
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