Tyler Junior College

Tyler Junior College began inside the public school system and stayed there twenty years. G. O. Clough was its president in the first year, followed by J. M. Hodges from 1927 to 1946, and enrollment fell to 156 in 1931 and stayed low through the decade, the Handbook of Texas says. Voters created the independent district in November 1945, and the Handbook lists the Winona, Lindale, Van, Grand Saline and New Chapel Hill school districts within it. Harry E. Jenkins became president in 1946 and served until 1981. Its best-known group is the Apache Belles drill team.

What the plaque says

Tyler Junior College Tyler Junior College was established in 1926 during the formative years of the junior college movement in Texas. This institution began as an extension of the Tyler public school system with school superintendent G. O. Clough serving as its first president. World War II stimulated several new programs at the college, but the greatest growth came in the post-war years. In 1945, voters established a new independent junior college district governed by a locally elected ten-member board of trustees. After a successful bond election, noted Tyler architect Shirley Simons designed a campus plan, which included the reuse of several surplus buildings from nearby Camp Fannin and the first new college facility, later named Jenkins Hall. A curriculum expansion accompanied the growth in facilities to offer a broader range of coursework to the students. Seventy-five years after its establishment, Tyler Junior College encompasses a 78-acre campus with 30 buildings and eight residence halls. The district includes Tyler and surrounding communities, allowing the college's significant impact to extend beyond city boundaries into the east Texas region. The growth and success of Tyler Junior College can be attributed to visionary leadership from the presidents and the boards of trustees, a dedicated faculty and a generous citizenry. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 1.8 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 2.4 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 4.4 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Tyler State Park — 10 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Colonel Thomas R. Bonner — 1.0 mi
• Near Site of C.S.A. Ordnance Plant — 1.1 mi
• Rudolph Bergfeld — 1.1 mi
• Gary Elementary School — 1.3 mi