First Hundred Years of Texas Christian University

After the move from Waco, the Fort Worth campus filled out in stages. TCU joined the Southwest Conference in 1922, and Leo R. Dutch Meyer's football teams of the 1930s and 1940s were considered among the best in the nation. The Handbook of Texas lists conference football titles in 1929, 1932, 1938, 1944, 1951, 1955 and 1958. Twenty-five buildings were built or acquired from 1950 to 1965, and in 1963 the university bought the 106-acre Worth Hills golf course next door. A Phi Beta Kappa chapter was established in 1971, two years before this marker.

What the plaque says

First Hundred Years of Texas Christian University Founded during 19th century Christian Restoration Movement, by Joseph Addison Clark (1815-1901) and sons Addison (1842-1911) and Randolph (1844-1935). Joseph A. Clark, born in Illinois, came to Republic of Texas in 1839. A teacher, preacher, lawyer, surveyor, editor and publisher, he also was Fort Worth Postmaster in noisy cattle-trail and early railroad era. His sons, home from the Civil War, established a school in this city in 1869, on site which proved unsuitable. The family moved the school to Thorp Springs (33 MI. SW), where they founded Add-Ran Male and Female College in 1873. Church-related from its origin, the college was given in 1889 to the Christian Church Convention of Texas, and renamed Addran Christian University. Moved to Waco on Christmas Day, 1895, the school was renamed Texas Christian University (1902), and stayed there until the main building was destroyed by fire in 1910. When Fort Worth offered 52 acres of land for a campus and funds of $200,000 for building, Texas Christian University returned (1910) to the city first chosen as its location. By 1973, TCU had grown to 243 acres, 60 buildings, seven schools and colleges, and an average fall enrollment of 6500 students. Erected during Centennial Observance - 1973.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 2.4 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 2.8 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• Tarrant County Courthouse — 3.7 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 5.6 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.

More markers nearby

• Texas Log Cabins — 0.8 mi
• Fort Worth Zoological Park — 0.9 mi
• Elizabeth Boulevard — 1.6 mi
• Travis Avenue Baptist Church — 1.6 mi