East Texas State University

William Leonidas Mayo, born in Kentucky in 1861, taught his way to Texas. Handbook of Texas biographer Cecil Harper reports that when Mayo found Denver's schools integrated, he resigned rather than teach Black and White children in one classroom. He founded East Texas Normal College at Cooper in 1889 and moved it to Commerce after a fire in 1894, drawn by the railroad and local incentives. He died of a heart attack in March 1917, minutes after learning that the legislature had voted to buy the school. In September 1996 the university took the name Texas A&M University-Commerce.

What the plaque says

East Texas State University Founded 1889 as the Mayo School, in Cooper (16 mi. NE). Reopened with about 35 students in a brick store on the public square here in Commerce in 1894, still under private ownership of William Leonidas Mayo (1861-1917), a gifted teacher from Kentucky. School was underwritten by public-spirited local citizens. Its most illustrious student, Sam Rayburn (1882-1961), gained international fame as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. The Mayo School passed into state ownership in 1917 as East Texas State Normal College, Randolph B. Binnion, president. After name was changed (1923) to East Texas State Teachers College, presidents were Sam H. Whitley (1924-1946), Arthur C. Ferguson (1946-1947) and James G. Gee (1947-1966). The word "teachers" was dropped from the title in 1957; in 1965, it became East Texas State University. In 1966, D. Whitney Halladay succeeded to the presidency. East Texas State University has more than 26,000 graduates. It offers bachelor's and master's degrees in arts and science; also the Doctor of Philosophy degree. Its 1200-acre campus has 150 buildings. It is one of 23 state-supported colleges and universities in Texas enrolling over 150,000 students annually. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 13 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• Cooper Lake State Park — 16 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 29 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.

More markers nearby

• Birthplace of Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault — 0.5 mi
• Incorporation of Commerce — 0.7 mi
• Scatter Branch Church — 3.6 mi
• Mt. Zion Churches and Cemetery — 5.2 mi