Butler College

The Handbook of Texas says the Texas Baptist Convention agreed to help run Butler College in 1932. After World War II it added vocational courses such as tailoring, photography and secretarial science, especially for veterans. In 1949 it had 361 students, a 33-acre campus with eleven buildings and a 103-acre farm on the Tyler-Kilgore highway, and by 1951 fourteen buildings. It never won four-year accreditation. Enrollment fell through the 1960s to 58 in 1968, and the college closed in the summer of 1972.

What the plaque says

Butler College Rev. Cornelius Moses Butler and trustees of the East Texas Baptist Association founded East Texas Baptist Academy in 1905. The academy was created to improve educational opportunities for African American youth in and around the city of Tyler. Rev. Butler served as the academy's first president until his death in 1924, at which time the institution's name was changed to Butler College. The school transitioned to a junior college and then a four year liberal arts college, before reverting back to a junior college in 1960. The association voted to close the college in 1971 because of rising costs. A heritage building was built on the Butler College site in 1992. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 0.4 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 — 1.6 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.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 4.9 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Tyler State Park — 10 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Smith County Rose Industry and the Tyler Rose Garden — 0.4 mi
• Gary Elementary School — 1.0 mi
• Richard Bennett Hubbard — 1.2 mi
• Rudolph Bergfeld — 1.2 mi