San Jacinto Community College District

The plaque tells the district's founding fight; Diana J. Kleiner's Handbook entry adds the name and the course list. The college took its name from the San Jacinto battleground, within sight of the campus, and the district first joined five ship channel school districts: Pasadena, Deer Park, Galena Park, La Porte and Channelview. Through the 1960s it offered the first two years of a four-year degree by day and evening, plus two-year programs in data processing, drafting, electronics, police administration and nursing. By 1965 enrollment reached 3,656, the second largest junior college in Texas.

What the plaque says

San Jacinto Community College District SAN JACINTO COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT THE GREATER PASADENA AREA GREW RAPIDLY FROM INDUSTRIALIZATION DURING AND AFTER WORLD WAR II, WITH THE CITY'S POPULATION INCREASING FROM 3,436 IN 1940 TO 22,483 IN 1950 AND TO 58,737 IN 1960. IN THE LATE 1950s, COMMUNITY LEADERS AND SCHOOL DISTRICT REPRESENTATIVES FROM ALONG THE HOUSTON SHIP CHANNEL DISCUSSED EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR GRADUATING STUDENTS AND PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRY WORKERS. IN MARCH 1960, COLLEGE SUPPORTERS PRESENTED PETITIONS TO THE COUNTY AND STATE BOARDS OF EDUCATION. A MAY 1960 ELECTION CREATED THE EAST HARRIS COUNTY UNION JUNIOR COLLEGE DISTRICT, A BOARD OF REGENTS AND A SUPPORTING PROPERTY TAX. THE EFFORT WITHSTOOD EARLY OPPOSITION INCLUDING LEGISLATION AND LAWSUITS. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT GAVE THE COLLEGE 141 ACRES FOR ITS SPENCER HIGHWAY CAMPUS IN DEC. 1960. TWO MONTHS LATER, REGENTS APPROVED DR. THOMAS SPENCER AS THE FIRST PRESIDENT. ONE WEEK AFTER HURRICANE CARLA DAMAGED TEMPORARY CLASSROOMS IN DOWNTOWN PASADENA, THE COLLEGE OPENED ON SEP. 18, 1961, AND THE OPENING ENROLLMENT OF 876 SET A NEW RECORD FOR FIRST-YEAR ENROLLMENT FOR TEXAS JUNIOR COLLEGES. WITH COMPLETION OF THE VINCENT HEINRICH SCIENCE BUILDING AND McCOLLUM ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, ALL CLASSES MOVED TO THE MAIN CAMPUS IN 1964. THE COLLEGE QUICKLY ACHIEVED STATE AND NATIONAL ACCREDITATION. VOTERS HAVE APPROVED SEVERAL BOND ELECTIONS, BUILDING NORTH (1975) AND SOUTH (1979) CAMPUSES. THE COLLEGE SUSTAINED FURTHER HURRICANE DAMAGE FROM ALICIA (1983) AND IKE (2008) BUT HAS REBUILT WITH ENROLLMENT STEADILY GROWING AT ALL THREE CAMPUSES. SAN JACINTO COLLEGE HAS ADDED NEW BUILDINGS AND PROGRAMS, COMMUNITY EXTENSION CENTERS, ONLINE AND HYBRID COURSES, AND CONTINUING EDUCATION COURSES TO MEET THE EDUCATIONAL AND WORKFORCE TRAINING NEEDS OF THE REGION. 175 YEARS OF TEXAS INDEPENDENCE * 1836-2011

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 6.4 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.
• Space Center Houston — 7.7 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• Emancipation Park — 16 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 17 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Home in 1836 of Dr. George Moffit Patrick — 2.6 mi
• Deer Park — 2.6 mi
• Pratt Truss Bridge — 2.7 mi
• Battle of San Jacinto — 4.0 mi