Port Arthur College

The Handbook of Texas calls Port Arthur College a city-owned, nonprofit school teaching business and electronics, and says the campus covered fifteen acres by 1925. Radio station KPAC began broadcasting there in 1933. By 1947 the college had 25 faculty and an average annual enrollment of 800. The Texas legislature gave it degree-granting status in 1991, the same year the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accredited it, and in spring 2001 enrollment stood at 3,086 with 144 faculty.

What the plaque says

Port Arthur College John W. Gates founded Port Arthur College in 1909 as a nonprofit, non-sectarian, vocational school focusing on stenography, accounting and communications. Gates, one of the founders of the Texas Company (Texaco), envisioned a school to complement local industries. Gates proposed building a school and hospital as memorials to his mother, and asked that the city donate the required property. The City Council used public park land between Procter Street and Lakeshore Drive for the college. Gates appointed the original trustees, including George M. Craig as first president. The college opened for classes on October 4, 1909. Gates believed the Spanish department would be especially attractive, with the opening of the Panama Canal and increased trade with Central America raising demand for bilingual secretaries and clerks. On December 1910, the board conveyed the college to the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the name was changed to Port Arthur Collegiate Institute. In succeeding years, academic, music and science classes were added to the curriculum. In 1919, the M. E. Church returned management to the board of trustees. By 1923, the college was a fully accredited commercial school. Communications courses that began with wireless telegraphy expanded to radio broadcasting and later a television station. During World War II, Port Arthur College trained approximately 1500 operators in communications for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The college flourished and in 1975 became part of the Lamar University System, later joining the Texas State University System and changing its name in 1999 to Lamar State College-Port Arthur. The school has grown from the first class of 35 enrolled to more than 3000 students today. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 0.6 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Sabine Pass Battleground State Historic Site — 11 mi
  A waterfront park at the mouth of the Sabine where the earthwork of Fort Griffin stood, with a Dowling statue, a Union memorial, wartime magazines and a walkway for fishing.
• Sea Rim State Park — 14 mi
  Texas's far southeast corner: nearly two miles of Gulf shoreline backed by 4,000 acres of marsh, reached by boardwalk or paddle trail, rebuilt after Rita and Ike.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 14 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.

More markers nearby

• Gates Memorial Library — steps away
• Arthur Edward Stilwell — steps away
• Federated Women's Clubs of Port Arthur — 0.3 mi
• Pompeiian Villa — 0.4 mi