First University Building

Denton's leaders had wanted a state school for years. The Handbook of Texas says Senator Charles V. Terrell, of Decatur, introduced the charter bill, and Governor Joseph D. Sayers signed it on March 31, 1899, but the money was not appropriated for two years. By then Joel S. Kendall, a former state superintendent of public instruction, was running the school. He thought the word college pretentious for the new state institution and refused to use it, and he sought to raise the standards for preparing teachers.

What the plaque says

First University Building On this site in 1891, the city of Denton erected a building to be leased to President Joshua C. Chilton, for the use of the privately owned Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute, which he had opened the year before in a business building downtown. The 10-acre campus became state property in 1901. President Chilton's college thus was forerunner of North Texas State University. The old Normal building was struck by lightning and burned, 1907. This marker is dedicated on the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the university. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 0.9 mi
  An 1896 courthouse by W. C. Dodson in Denton limestone, pink granite and two sandstones, restored in 2004, now a free county museum on a lawn holding the grave of John B. Denton.
• Wise County Courthouse — 25 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's granite Romanesque courthouse of 1895-96 in Decatur, built after fire destroyed the Second Empire courthouse and set off a fight over the county seat.

More markers nearby

• Texas Normal College — 0.8 mi
• Denton County — 0.9 mi
• Edna Westbrook Trigg in Denton County — 0.9 mi
• John B. Denton — 0.9 mi