United States / College Station, TX

Rock Prairie School and Church. German immigrant Adam Royder (d. 1894) donated one acre of land here for school purposes in 1891. A one-room schoolhouse was constructed where area students received instruction through the seventh grade. The Rock Prairie Missionary Baptist Church was organized in the schoolhouse in 1900, and church services were subsequently held there, as well. The Rock Prairie School was discontinued in 1919 after it was consolidated with the nearby Shiloh School, but the schoolhouse continued to serve area Baptists as a house of worship. #8692

2405 Old Rock Prairie Rd, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08696

Shiloh Community. Settled in the 1860s by Czech, German, and Polish immigrants, the Shiloh community was an area of large family farms. In addition to homes and farms, the settlement at one time boasted a community center, a two-room school, a vineyard, a mill, and a blacksmith shop. The families of Shiloh community maintained a cooperative relationship, often helping each other with planting, harvesting, barn building, and other activities. In 1883, to coordinate assistance efforts and group purchases of farm supplies, they formed the Slavonic Agricultural and Benevolent Society, which still exists in reorganized form as the Shiloh Club. The community later was completely encompassed by the City of College Station. Mrs. William G. Rector deeded land at this site to the local Methodist Church in 1870 for use as a community cemetery. The property later was acquired by the City of College Station, which established a larger city cemetery around the original Shiloh Graveyard. Although little remains of the Shiloh community, this cemetery serves as a reminder of a once-thriving settlement. #8696

2604 Texas Ave., College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08671

Bryan & College Interurban Railway. Bryan mayor J.T. Maloney and the city's Retail Merchants Association incorporated the Bryan & College Interurban Railway Company in 1909. The company was created to establish an interurban railway service between Bryan, a town of about 4,000 people, and the Texas Agricultural & Mechanical College (Texas A&M), with a student and faculty population of about 750. Daily service consisting of ten 30-minute trips began in 1910 with passenger trolleys and gasoline-powered rail cars. Along the route landowners built residential subdivisions and small farms, and to provide an attraction the city created Dellwood Park. Freight service began in 1918 to help bolster an operation beset with labor problems and the loss of passengers to automobile ridership. In 1922 the Bryan & College Interurban Railway went into receivership and in 1923 its assets were sold at auction to the S.S. Hunter Estate. The last recorded trip of the Interurban took place on April 13, 1923. During its 15 years of operation the Interurban Railway greatly influenced the course of Bryan's and College Station's urban development. Today the two cities merge indistinguishably at a point on the former Bryan & College Interurban Railway route. #8671

?, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08672

Carter, Richard, Homesite. In 1831, Richard Carter (1789-1863), Virginia native and War of 1812 veteran, came from Alabama and received a grant of land within the Stephen F. Austin Colony at the site of what is now the City of College Station. He became one of the area's wealthiest land and slave owners, raising cattle, corn, and cotton during the years before the Civil War. Carter was appointed to the first Board of Commissioners after Brazos County was created in 1841 and helped survey Boonville, its first county seat. Evidence of the Carter home and the family cemetery has been found in this area. #8672

?, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08675

Early Texas A&M Campus Housing. When Texas A&M University opened in 1876, it was four miles from Bryan, the nearest town, and the need for campus housing for faculty and staff arose. The first of the campus houses, five brick homes along the east side of Throckmorton Street, were built in 1876. By 1938, there were more than one hundred homes on campus. The types of houses varied, ranging from large Queen Anne style homes to small bungalows and cottages. The homes were located throughout the campus. When the City of College Station was incorporated in 1938, housing in town became available, and the decision was made to remove the faculty housing. Many residents expressed a desire to buy their homes, and the college began accepting bids in 1941. One third of the houses were soon sold, with prices ranging from $200-$800. Another third were sold and moved over the next twenty years. The rest of the original structures were burned or razed. None remain on campus. Forty-one of the original homes have been located. Thirty-eight are in College Station, two are in Bryan, and one is about two miles north of Bryan. #8675

?, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #13369

Main Drill Field, Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University opened in October 1876 and established the Corps of Cadets to fulfill its Congressional mandate to teach military tactics. The students at what was then an all-male institution were required to serve in the corps and follow military discipline. At the center of the Corps and campus activity was the Main Drill Field, where cadets drilled and practiced maneuvers before and after classes. The site of horse-drawn artillery and infantry exercises, as well as student pilot training in the 1920s, the open parade ground also served as the university's early football field prior to construction of a permanent field in 1905. The Aggie Bonfire was held on the Main Drill Field from 1909 until 1955, and students assembled for drills and graduation activities, including the Corps' Final Review. In 1920, A&M's Board of Directors paid tribute to former cadets killed during World War I by planting oak trees around the field. Markers at each tree provided the name, class and site and date of death for each man. The classes of 1923, 1924, 1925 and 1926 placed a granite memorial to the war casualties on the west side of the drill field, which was later named for A&M distinguished alumni Lieutenant General Ormond R. Simpson, a 1936 mechanical engineering graduate of the university. After serving in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, Simpson retired in 1972 and became A&M's Assistant Vice-President for Student Services and head of the School of Military Sciences. He served at the university until retiring in 1985, the year the field was named in his honor. A&M's Main Drill Field is a testament to the school's beginnings as a military and academic institution, as well as a symbol of Aggies' service to their state and nation. (2004) #13369

?, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08698

Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. Soon after its opening in 1876, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (Texas A&M) established the Corps of Cadets to fulfill its mandate to instruct its students (all-male until the early 1960s) in military science. A&M contributed more officers to America's WW II effort than any other institution, includin the U.S. Military Academy. Many of the Corps' traditional activities, such as the Aggie Band, Fish Drill Team, and Ross Volunteers, have gained national and international recognition. A&M's elite Corps of Cadets continues to dominate the University's unique public image. #8698

?, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #13065

Early Play-By-Play Radio Broadcast of a College Football Game. In 1920, David J. Finn and other Texas A&M electrical engineering students attempted to broadcast the football game at Oklahoma A&M via ham radio. When the plan failed they used a telephone backup, relaying game updates to fans gathered in the Texas A&M stock judging pavilion. The following year, students at campus wireless station 5XB planned to transmit live play-by-play accounts of the conference championship against the University of Texas. William A. Tolson and other students overcame technical difficulties to make the broadcast possible. They ran lines from the Kyle Field press box to a transmitter at Bolton Hall and borrowed equipment from the Corps of Cadets Signal Corps. They installed three redundant systems: two connected to the power plant and a battery backup. Harry M. Saunders and the coaching staff devised abbreviations to describe the action and improve transmission speed. "TB A 45Y," for example, signified "Texas ball on the Aggie 45 yard line." On game day, November 24, 1921, the broadcast was flawless with Saunders at the telegraph key. At station 5XU in Austin, Franklin K. Matejka relayed messages to Longhorn fans seconds after each play. Amateur radio operators across Texas also followed the action. The game ended in a scoreless tie, but A&M became conference champion. The following year, 5XB became WTAW, and several of the students went on to distinguished careers in engineering, broadcast technology and related fields. By days, the experminet missed being the first such achievement in the U.S., but it is believed to be the first in Texas. Ingenuity and innovation resulted in a pioneering broadcasting accomplishment. (2005) #13065

?, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08699

Texas A&M University. The State Legislature authorized the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas April 17, 1871, under terms of the Federal Morrill Act. Constitutionally a part of a chartered, yet-unorganized state university, A&M gained its own directorate in 1875 with Governor Richard Coke as Board President. Brazos Countians provided its 2,416-acre site. Committed to "teach...branches of learning...related to agriculture and mechanic arts...to promote liberal and practical education," A&M opened Oct. 4, 1876, as the first state institution of higher learning actually operating in Texas. Thomas S. Gathright was President. Its original six students in seven academic departments grew to 28,038 students in eleven academic colleges by 1976. Initially an all-male, all-white school, it was desegregated as to color in 1963 and made fully coeducational in 1971. The Legislature recognized its diversified programs and international leadership in education and research by awarding the new name, Texas A&M University, on Aug. 23, 1963. On Sept. 17, 1971, the U.S. Congress made this one of America's first four Sea Grant Colleges. National defense has drawn from Texas A&M thousands of ROTC men, including 29 general officers for World War II. #8699

?, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08662

A&M College Consolidated Rural School. The state of Texas granted a charter for an independent school district to encompass the Texas A&M College campus in 1909. Because there was not a sufficient number of students in the district to support a school, A&M president William Bizzell and professor Martin Hayes, head of the department of vocational teaching, persuaded the leaders of three surrounding common school districts to send their students to a new school to be located on the college campus. The new school opened in 1920 with 304 students. It was supported by A&M college with funding for buildings, teacher salaries, furniture, and equipment. It became a model for rural schools in the area, and by 1928 the surrounding school districts officially dissolved and merged with A&M College Consolidated Independent School District. By 1938 the school facilities had become overcrowded. Because the college was not able to increase its contributions to the institution, the school moved off of the A&M campus in 1940. With the move came the genesis of the College Station Independent School District. #8662

2118 Welsh, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08674

College Station Railroad Depots. In 1871 Texas Governor Edmund Davis appointed three Commissioners to select a site for the newly established Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (Texas A&M College). The Commissioners chose this location in large part because of the existence of a Houston and Texas Central (H&TC) Railroad line which began in Southeast Texas and extended through this area to its terminus in Bryan (5 mi. north). Although no railroad depot existed here at the time of Texas A&M's formal opening in 1876, H&TC made regular stops here for incoming and outgoing college students and faculty. H&TC railroad conductor announcements referring to to this stop as College Station gave rise to the name of the surrounding community. H&TC constructed a new depot about 1900. The H&TC depots and another built by the International & Great Northern (IGN) Railroad just east of this site in 1900 were for many students who attended Texas A&M the first remembrance of their collegiate experience. Railroad depots owned by the H&TC (later Southern Pacific) and IGN (later Missouri Pacific) maintained passenger service at this location until 1959. In 1966 the last of the depot structures was razed. #8674

?, College Station, TX, United States

Texas Historical Marker #08628

African American Education in College Station. Formal education for African Americans in Brazos County began as a result of the Public School Act of 1871. Classes were held in many small community and church-related schools, and by 1923 there were 127 African American students in the A&M Consolidated School District. Buildings accommodated only elementary school students until an agreement was reached to bus pupils to the Kemp High School in Bryan. The A&M School District paid the expenses. In the 1930s the number of African American students grew steadily. Rising costs of tuition and transportation prompted the A&M District to approve and build a high school in College Station. The A&M Consolidated Negro School opened in 1941. An athletic field was added in 1946 and the name of the school changed to Lincoln School. The building was expanded in 1948. A fire in 1966 destroyed one of three classroom buildings displacing 100 students. The burned facilities were not rebuilt. The City of College Station leased the land and the remaining five buildings in the late 1960s, and restored the site in 1972. The city bought the land in 1978 and dedicated the Lincoln Center in 1980. The former school is now the home of many community activities in College Station. (1996) #8628

1000 Eleanor St., College Station, TX, United States