Jarvis Christian College

Black Disciples of Christ drove the effort. BlackPast says they had tried to start a school at Dixon as early as 1902. The university's history credits Mary Alphin, state organizer for the Negro Disciples, with planning a school in 1904 with the Christian Woman's Board of Missions, which offered $10,000 if Texas churches raised $1,000. Ida Van Zandt Jarvis, persuaded by Virginia Hearn, persuaded her husband to give land. Thomas Buchanan Frost and C. A. Berry cleared and fenced the tract in 1912, and instruction began January 13, 1913.

What the plaque says

Jarvis Christian College In 1904 the Texas Negro Disciples of Christ joined with the Christian Women's Board of Missions (CWBM) to establish a school for Black youth. A campus, consisting of a 456-acre tract donated by Ida and J. J. Jarvis of Fort Worth in 1910 and 182 adjoining acres purchased by the CWBM, was created here in 1912. Jarvis Christian Institute opened in 1913 with 12 elementary students. It added courses for high school in 1914, junior college in 1927, senior college in 1937, and gained full accreditation in 1950. It remains affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). (1993)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tyler State Park — 9.4 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 14 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 17 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 19 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.

More markers nearby

• Lillian Richard — 6.1 mi
• First Baptist Church of Winona — 6.6 mi
• Elisha Everett Lott — 7.9 mi
• New Hope Missionary Baptist Church — 8.2 mi