Stephenville · Erath County · Public · Official site
Texas campuses and the stories they hold.
About the campus
Tarleton opened in 1899 on money left by John Tarleton, a cattleman who never married and wanted his fortune to educate the young people of Erath County. In 1917 it became a junior-college branch of Texas A&M, and it grew into a full university by 1973. The school's story is told through odd, much-loved landmarks, most of them built or paid for by students: stone gates, a bandstand, a sealed cannon, and a brick smokestack. This walk starts at the founder's marker on Washington Street and ends at his bronze statue on Military Drive.
About this site
Tarleton State University is a public college or university in Stephenville, Erath County.
The site sits at 32.2137, -98.2167 near Stephenville. The nearest cataloged historic site is John Tarleton (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include West End Cemetery, President's House, and Brick Streets of Stephenville, Historic.
Tarleton State grew out of the fortune of John Tarleton, a Stephenville-area settler and landholder who left an endowment in his will to give Erath County a college. John Tarleton College first held classes in 1896 on the grounds of the defunct Stephenville College, paused for a year amid a leadership dispute, and resumed in 1899, the year the university counts as its start. In 1917 the Texas Legislature accepted the campus after local trustees and citizens offered its property to the state, turning it into John Tarleton Agricultural College, a junior-college branch of Texas A&M and a founding piece of what became the Texas A&M University System. A ROTC unit arrived in 1921, and the school's athletes went by the Junior Aggies and later the Plowboys before a 1961 student contest chose the name Texans. Renamed Tarleton State College in 1949, it began four-year degree programs in 1959 and awarded its first bachelor's degrees a few years later. It became Tarleton State University in 1973 and added doctoral programs in 2003. Signature spaces include the red-brick E.J. Howell Education Building and a statue of John Tarleton with his pet duck on Alumni Island, while traditions such as the secretive Purple Poo spirit group and the L.V. Risinger Bonfire keep the school's history in view. Tarleton marked its 125th anniversary in 2024 and has grown well beyond Stephenville, with a campus in Fort Worth and an NCAA Division I athletics program.
See this site and every marker, cemetery, courthouse, museum and landmark across Texas on one live map — find what's near you, get directions, and check in as you roam.
