Texas Woman's University Campus Tour

Texas Woman's University began in 1901 as a state industrial college for young women, and Denton was chosen as its home in 1902 after a contest among competing towns. More than a century later it remains one of the largest universities in the country focused primarily on women. This walk starts at a Texas Centennial statue, passes the first classroom building, and follows the collections that tell women's history, from Texas first ladies' gowns to the national WASP archive. It finishes in the stone-walled gardens around a chapel students helped build by hand.

Texas Woman's University began in 1901 as a state industrial college for young women, and Denton won the right to host it in 1902 after a contest among competing towns. More than a century later it remains one of the largest universities in the country focused primarily on women, and this walk follows the collections and landmarks that tell that story.

The Pioneer Woman statue, funded by the Texas Legislature for the state's centennial and unveiled in 1938, shows a frontier mother striding forward and has long stood as a symbol of the university. Old Main, where classes began in 1903, now holds the Sue S. Bancroft Women's Leadership Hall, an interactive gallery on women in Texas politics and the fight for suffrage. The Blagg-Huey Library keeps the Woman's Collection, begun in 1932, and serves as the official archive of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II.

The most striking building may be the Little Chapel-in-the-Woods, designed by O'Neil Ford and Arch Swank and dedicated in 1939 with an address by Eleanor Roosevelt; students helped build and decorate it by hand, and graduate art students made its stained glass. The walk also takes in a rotating display of gowns worn by Texas first ladies and quiet stone-walled gardens.

For anyone interested in women's history, Texas architecture or peaceful campus gardens, this is a rich and rewarding walk.