Site of Belle Plain College

John Day gave Belle Plain College its ten acres. In the first year, 1881-82, the college ran together with the public school under president F. W. Chatfield. A state charter came in spring 1882, and under Rev. J. T. L. Annis enrollment reached 122. By the end of the decade the school owned fifteen pianos, but the whole plant had been mortgaged to pay for furnishings and instruments, and operating money came only from the local school district. The mortgage company foreclosed in 1889 and let classes continue until President I. M. Onins died in 1892.

What the plaque says

Early college of West Texas. Founded in 1881 by Methodist Church. Enrollment reached peak of 300 and students attended from throughout the region. College developed a superior course of study, with special strength in music. It had an orchestra and a brass band. A girl's dormitory was built soon after founding, and in 1885 a 3-story stone building was erected. School also had a military branch in town. Pupils wore blue and gray uniforms. After town lost both county seat and many citizens to Baird, 1883, college eventually closed. (1969).

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Conrad Hilton Center and Mobley Hotel — 23 mi
  The 40-room oil-boom hotel in Cisco that Conrad Hilton bought in 1919 when a bank deal fell through, now a museum of the Hilton start and of Cisco's 1927 Santa Claus bank robbery.
• Frontier Texas! — 23 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 29 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.

More markers nearby

• Belle Plain — steps away
• William Jeff Maltby — 1.7 mi
• Belle Plaine Cemetery — 1.7 mi
• Admiral Baptist Church — 4.0 mi