East Tennessee State University

The school began as the prize of a campaign. In 1903 a group of Tennessee educators, P. P. Claxton of the University of Tennessee, Sidney G. Gilbreath, State Superintendent Seymour A. Mynders and R. L. Jones among them, set out to reform schools whose rural teachers often had only an eighth-grade education and easy county examinations. Their six-year crusade produced the Education Act of 1909, which created four normal schools to train teachers, at Johnson City, Memphis, Murfreesboro and Nashville. The Johnson City school awarded its first four master's degrees in 1951.

What the plaque says

East Tennessee State University Created by the legislature in 1909, East Tennessee State Normal School was built on land given by George L. Carter. Official state flag was first raised at dedication ceremonies on October 10, 1911. The school became a teachers college in 1925, a college in 1943 and a university in 1963. The Quillen-Dishner College of Medicine opened in 1978. Original classroom building was named for first president Sidney G. Gilbreath.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Jonesborough Historic District — 5.7 mi
  Tennessee's oldest town, chartered in 1779, where Elihu Embree printed The Emancipator in 1820 and a hay wagon by the courthouse started the National Storytelling Festival in 1973.
• Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park — 7.0 mi
  A shoal on the Watauga River where the Transylvania Company bought about 20 million acres from the Cherokee in March 1775, Dragging Canoe refused, and the Overmountain Men mustered in 1780.
• Rocky Mount Museum — 7.3 mi
  William Cobb's log house at Piney Flats, where Governor William Blount ran the Southwest Territory from 1790 to 1792, now a living-history museum set in 1791 with a reconstructed cabin for the enslaved.
• Unicoi County Heritage Museum and the Erwin Rail Yard — 9.6 mi
  A museum in the old fish hatchery superintendent's house in Erwin, a Clinchfield railroad town where the elephant Mary was hanged in 1916 and Black residents were driven out in 1918.

More markers nearby

• Desegregation of East Tennessee State College (University) 1956 and 1958 — steps away
• National Soldiers' Home — 0.5 mi
• Johnson City Home of Mountain Dew — 0.5 mi
• State Flag — 1.0 mi