Alamo Institute

An 1895 announcement, quoted on the Ben Wheeler community's website, called it a four-year college in a village where no intoxicants were sold, with students boarding in local homes. A county biography volume lists three teachers in 1893 (J. F. Davidson, J. M. Dean and William Finley) and board at $8 to $9 a month, boys and girls kept at separate houses. The building was L-shaped. George Wood later bought the smaller wing, moved it to the town square for a grocery with a lodge room upstairs, then tore it down for lumber.

What the plaque says

Alamo Institute In 1890 Van Zandt county had 81 schools but none for higher learning. In April 1890, Prof. James F. Davidson and J. W. Downs held a community meeting in the Old Clough School House in Ben Wheeler. They presented a plan, adopted unanimously, to establish Alamo Institute if citizens transferred control of Clough School. The institute's main building was completed in time for the fall semester. By 1894 the campus included a pair of two-story buildings. Courses included history, latin, science, music and voice culture. Alamo Institute closed before 1911. State representative, county and district attorney, and U. S. Congressman Morgan G. Sanders was the most prominent graduate. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 16 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.
• Purtis Creek State Park — 18 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 23 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 24 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.

More markers nearby

• Morgan G. Sanders — steps away
• Ben Wheeler Community — steps away
• Cox Cemetery — 4.0 mi
• Holly Springs United Methodist Church — 4.2 mi