Hillsboro Junior College

The college began in a fire. After the Hillsboro high school burned on April 6, 1922, the Handbook of Texas says, the school system combined money for a high school and a junior college into one three-story building, with the college on the third floor. Classes opened on September 10, 1923, with six faculty members and fifty-two students. Two temporary classroom buildings were added in 1947, and the school closed in 1950 for lack of funds. Its charter was reactivated in 1959, and Hill Junior College opened in the National Guard armory in 1962 with 190 students.

What the plaque says

Hillsboro Junior College One of first public junior colleges in Texas. Established 1923, as a part of Hillsboro public school system. Peak attendance was 410 students during 1939-40. School closed Aug. 31, 1950, after voters defeated maintenance tax proposal twice. Reopened 1962. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hill County Courthouse — 0.4 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Cleburne State Park — 30 mi
  A 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps park on the old Chisholm Trail crossing country, with a spring-fed lake, a hand-carved three-tiered spillway and a CCC bridge in Johnson County.

More markers nearby

• James L. Harris — 0.3 mi
• City of Hillsboro — 0.3 mi
• Hill County — 0.4 mi
• Site of Old Lexington Village — 0.4 mi