Clifton Lutheran College

The college kept changing its name. Begun in 1896 as the Lutheran College of Clifton, it opened as Clifton High School in 1897, backed by Norwegian Lutheran churches in Texas. The German Lutherans of the Missouri Synod helped support it from 1907 to 1914. It became Clifton Junior College on October 25, 1945, and Clifton College on February 22, 1952. After the 1954 merger the administration building was sold to Carl Olsen, Sr., for his Gearench Manufacturing Company, and in 1981 it was dedicated as the Carl E. Olsen Fine Arts Building of the Bosque County Conservatory.

What the plaque says

Clifton Lutheran College Organized May 6, 1896. Located on land donated by N. J. Nelson and T. T. Hogevold. The first building, erected with voluntary donations and labor, opened as high school October 28, 1897; after 1923 housed artifacts collection of Jacob Olson, early Norwegian settler. Under the direction of Dr. Carl Tyssen, president, college courses were offered in 1922; accredited as a two-year college in 1924. High school was discontinued in 1938. College merged with Texas Lutheran College, Seguin, in 1954. Two buildings formerly used by the college remain on the site. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bosque Museum — steps away
  A Clifton museum holding what it calls the largest repository of Norwegian artifacts in the South and Southwest, with Bosque County finds some 10,000 years old and a log cabin built by the Olson family.
• Meridian State Park — 10 mi
  A 505-acre park in Bosque County where World War I veterans of a Civilian Conservation Corps company dammed Bee Creek in 1933-34 for a 72-acre lake and cut stone buildings around it.
• Waco Mammoth National Monument — 27 mi
  A bone bed on the Bosque River where a nursery herd of at least 19 Columbian mammoths was trapped and drowned by floodwater 65,000 to 72,000 years ago, left in place under a dig shelter.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 31 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Site of Clifton Mill — 1.4 mi
• Election Oak — 4.1 mi
• Norwegian Settlements in Bosque County — 5.5 mi
• Cleng Peerson — 7.0 mi