Lamar University

Lamar University began as South Park Junior College, which the South Park school district in Beaumont launched on September 17, 1923, with 125 students and 14 faculty sharing the top floor of the district's brand-new high school; Superintendent L. R. Pietzsch served as the college's first president. In 1932 it became Lamar College, named for Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas, and by June 1942 it had its own junior college district and was holding classes on its present campus along the Port Arthur highway. Enrollment jumped after World War II, and after a failed 1947 attempt, state Rep. Jack Brooks and Sen. W. R. Cousins Jr. carried a bill that Governor Beauford Jester signed on June 14, 1949, turning the school into the four-year Lamar State College of Technology with a mandate in engineering, technology and science. The college admitted only white students until Jackson v. McDonald, a 1955 class-action suit; in July 1956 federal judge Lamar Cecil struck down the policy, and 26 Black students entered that September while violent protests went on outside for weeks. Master's programs arrived in 1960, a Doctor of Engineering in 1970, and the Lamar University name in 1971. After heading its own Lamar University System from 1983, the school moved into the Texas State University System in 1995, with its Orange and Port Arthur branches becoming separate colleges. Today it is a doctoral research university known for engineering, and it dedicated the Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum in 1976 to recall the 1901 oil gusher that transformed Beaumont.

Sources: en.wikipedia.orgtshaonline.orgen.wikipedia.org