Origin of the Texas State Teachers Association

The Handbook of Texas traces the association back to an Austin group formed in December 1871 with William Carey Crane as president, reorganized in 1879 as the Austin Teachers Association. In 1880 Crane and J. R. Malone agreed to unite it with the North Texas Educational Association, and the joint meeting was called at Mexia. Early membership was only a few hundred White teachers paying a dollar a year. A committee under Oscar Henry Cooper drafted the university plan that Governor Roberts's message carried to the Legislature, which created the University of Texas in 1881.

What the plaque says

Origin of the Texas State Teachers Association The first statewide teacher association in Texas had its beginnings in two regional teachers organizations. The North Texas Education Association was begun in Dallas in 1877. Teachers in central Texas met in Austin in 1879, formed the Austin Teachers Association, and made plans to meet the next year with the north Texas group to create a statewide organization. At a three-day meeting beginning June 29, 1880, about 40 Texas educators met at this site (former Cumberland Presbyterian Church) and organized the Texas State Teachers Association. The Rev. Dr. J. R. Malone was elected president and Governor O. M. Roberts served as guest speaker. The new organization took as its purpose the advancement of public education. One resolution passed at the first meeting supported the organization of the University of Texas, which at the mandate of the Legislature actually opened for classes in 1883. All professional teachers in the state were invited to join and by 1979 the membership had grown to over 100,000. TSTA has helped improve the the quality of education by raising teacher standards and by influencing passage of major education legislation. 1980

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 5.7 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 8.1 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Old Fort Parker — 9.1 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Mexia — steps away
• Town Named for Gen. Jose Antonio Mexia — 0.2 mi
• Alfonso Steel — 0.7 mi
• Albert R. Mace — 0.7 mi