Temple College

The Handbook of Texas describes a college that nearly closed. Temple Junior College opened in fall 1926 with eighty-seven students and no support but tuition. After voters defeated a 1928 bond for separate buildings, it survived only by consolidating with the public schools, which shared administration and faculty. State help first arrived in 1941. In 1955 alumni visited every registered voter in the new college district, and a $300,000 bond carried six to one. Racial segregation at the college ended in 1957, the year it moved to its own campus.

What the plaque says

Temple College After two attempts to secure a location for higher education, city leaders banded together to create Temple Junior College in 1926. Thanks to joint efforts of civic, business and educational leaders, the need for a post-secondary institution in Temple was met. In the early years, the college was operated by the public school system and classes met in the city's high school building. As the student body grew, so did the need for a larger campus. A separate junior college district was established in 1955, enabling the college to build a new facility. The college moved to its present location in South Temple in 1957. Temple College has traditionally offered pre-professional courses leading to degrees in medicine, law, education, engineering and similar fields as well as more general academic courses that enable students to transfer to four-year institutions for baccalaureate degrees. In recent years, a wide variety of credit and non-credit classes, programs and workshops have been offered through business and community education in Temple College sites in Bell, Milam and Williamson Counties. Temple College became a leader in education for health professions with the opening of a new health sciences center and clinical simulation center in 2004. With an enrollment of more than 6100 students, the college is large enough to maintain a flexible and varied program. In 1996, the name of the college was changed to Temple College to reflect its role as a comprehensive college, offering transfer programs, technical education, community education, career and workforce training and cultural activities. (2013)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 0.3 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Mother Neff State Park — 18 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 28 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.

More markers nearby

• City of Temple — steps away
• Site of the Organization of the Texas Forestry Association — steps away
• Knob Creek Lodge No. 401, A.F. & A.M. — steps away
• 42nd Reunion of Hood's Texas Brigade — steps away