Allen Academy

The plaque follows the Allen family and the campus. The Handbook adds the college years. In 1927 Allen Academy added a first year of junior college under the supervision of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, and a second year followed in 1947. Blinn College in Brenham took over those courses in 1968. The school became a nonprofit foundation in June 1953 and ended its military program in 1982. In the summer of 1988 the property was sold to the federal government for a minimum-security prison unit, and the school moved to a new campus between Bryan and College Station.

What the plaque says

Allen Academy This school originated as Madison Academy, founded in 1886 in Madisonville by John Hodges Allen (1854-1920), an educator from Mississippi. When his brother Rivers O. Allen (1865-1925) joined him in 1896, the institution became Allen Academy, a private boarding school for boys. During the summer of 1899, the Allens moved the school to Bryan. In the early years of the 20th Century, enrollment steadily increased. The campus was enlarged and new buildings erected to accommodate the students. During World War I, military training was introduced. In 1925 John Allen's son Nat Burtis Allen (1892-1946) became director of the school. During his tenure, the academy continued to grow and gained national recognition. When he died in 1946, the campus contained over 300 acres, including a farm and dairy. His son Nat Burtis Allen, Jr. (1919-1973) guided the institution until 1973 and led in establishing broader curriculum. Allen Academy is the oldest accredited, non-sectarian preparatory school for boys operating in Texas. Its graduates include leaders in government and business. Today the institution is coeducational and offers a broad range of scholastic programs for boarding and day students. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 5.6 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.
• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 24 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.
• Navasota — 24 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 24 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.

More markers nearby

• Wesa Weddington — 0.9 mi
• Site of the Town of Boonville — 0.9 mi
• Moravian (Czech) Cemetery — 1.5 mi
• Site of Villa Maria Ursuline Academy — 2.2 mi