Dr. Edwin L. Stephens

The school Stephens led opened on September 18, 1901, with Martin Hall, Foster Hall and a shop building, 100 students and 8 faculty. Its first graduating class, in 1903, had 18 students. The name changed several times: Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute until 1920, Southwestern Louisiana Institute from 1921, the University of Southwestern Louisiana by 1960, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1999. A 1984 vote to call it the University of Louisiana was reversed by the legislature in under a month.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — 1.4 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 7.1 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site — 13 mi
  A bayou-side state site on former Attakapas hunting ground, with a raised Creole cottage of about 1815, a reproduction 1800 farmstead and its slave quarters, and the story behind Longfellow's Evangeline.
• St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church — 13 mi
  The Mother Church of the Acadians, founded in 1765 on St. Martin Square in St. Martinville, with a late 1870s Lourdes grotto and, a block away, the Evangeline Oak on Bayou Teche.

More markers nearby

• 1898-1899 (ULL Walk of Honor) — steps away
• Griffin House — steps away
• Pillars of Progress (Desegregation of SLI) — 0.3 mi
• Lafayette Museum / Le Musée de Lafayette — 0.3 mi