Tillotson College

George Jeffrey Tillotson planned the school, chose its site and raised $16,000 to establish it. Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute opened on January 17, 1881, with 250 students, most of them in the lower grades, in Allen Hall; Beard Hall followed in 1894. J. T. Hodges became the first African American president in 1924. Enrollment fell to 130 by 1930, but the high school was dropped in 1931, senior-college standing was reached, coeducation returned in 1935, and in 1943 the Southern Association of Colleges gave the college an "A" rating. By 1946 it enrolled 650 students.

What the plaque says

Tillotson College Founded in 1875 by the Rev. George J. Tillotson with the support of the American Missionary Association and congregational churches, Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute was chartered in 1877. Building on a foundation already set in Austin by the Evans Industrial School, Tillotson College focused on teacher training and quality education for African Americans. In 1925 Tillotson was designated a junior college. In 1926 it became a women's college and Mary Elizabeth Branch assumed the presidency in 1930. During her tenure, the school returned to its co-educational status as a full four-year institution. Through Branch's efforts, a partnership with Samuel Huston College was established, and in 1952 the two schools merged to form Huston-Tillotson College. (1999)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Cemetery — 0.2 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.3 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.6 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.3 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Blackshear Elementary School — steps away
• John A. Wharton — 0.3 mi
• Capt. Jesse Billingsley — 0.3 mi
• Jesse and Rosanna Grimes — 0.3 mi