Texas campuses and the stories they hold.
LeTourneau University occupies the grounds of Harmon General Hospital, a World War II Army hospital that the earthmoving inventor R. G. LeTourneau and his wife Evelyn bought in 1946 to start a technical school for returning veterans. This walk begins with the markers for the hospital and the founder, visits the free museum of his machines and missions, and passes the library and performance hall. It ends at the one wartime building still standing, the hospital chapel.
LeTourneau University is a private college or university in Longview, Gregg County.
The site sits at 32.4668, -94.7296 near Longview. The nearest cataloged historic site is Harmon General Hospital (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Robert Gilmour LeTourneau, R G LeTourneau Museum, and Harmon General Hospital Chapel.
Industrialist R. G. LeTourneau and his wife, Evelyn, came to East Texas looking for a factory site and found the recently closed Harmon General Hospital, a World War II Army hospital in Longview. With help from newspaper publisher Carl Estes and other local leaders, they bought its 156 acres and 220 buildings from the federal government for one dollar, on condition that nothing be torn down for ten years and that a trade school for veterans operate there. The state chartered LeTourneau Technical Institute on February 20, 1946, and classes began that April with an all-male, mostly veteran student body who alternated days in the classroom with shifts at LeTourneau's nearby earthmoving-equipment plant. In 1961 the institute became the coeducational LeTourneau College, began granting bachelor's degrees, and started replacing the wartime wooden barracks with permanent buildings such as the Margaret Estes Library. Accreditation of its engineering programs followed under Richard LeTourneau, the founders' eldest son, and the school took the name LeTourneau University in 1989. Today it is known for engineering, aviation and technology programs taught from a Christian perspective, along with online and adult programs.
Sources: tshaonline.orgen.wikipedia.org
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.
