Jarvis Christian University Campus Tour

In 1910 Ida Van Zandt Jarvis and her husband, Maj. James J. Jarvis of Fort Worth, deeded 456 acres near Hawkins for the education of Black students, and the school opened in January 1913 with a dozen elementary pupils. It grew step by step into a high school, a junior college in 1927, and a senior college in 1937, and it became Jarvis Christian University in 2022. Today it is the last surviving historically Black college of the twelve founded by the Disciples of Christ. This walk visits the state marker, a presidential home on the National Register, the oldest surviving campus building, and the library and religious center at the heart of student life.

Few Texas campuses have a founding story like this one. In 1910 Ida Van Zandt Jarvis and Maj. James J. Jarvis of Fort Worth deeded 456 acres near Hawkins so that Black members of the Disciples of Christ, who had been planning a school since 1904, could educate their young people. Classes began in January 1913 with just twelve elementary pupils. Of the twelve historically Black colleges the Disciples founded, Jarvis Christian University is the last one still standing.

This walk traces that slow, determined climb. Jarvis added high school work in 1914, junior college courses in 1927 and senior college courses in 1937, won regional accreditation in 1967 and took the university name in 2022. The buildings mark those stages. Completed in 1936, the Emma B. Smith Building is the only structure left from the era of first president James Nelson Ervin, who took charge in 1914. The Florence Robinson Cottage was built around 1940 as the president's home and later served as a guest house. It was restored in 1976 with a gift from a former instructor and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other stops carry the story into the postwar decades, when the college grew toward full accreditation, and show how the university's church ties still shape its gatherings today.

It's a short, meaningful stroll through East Texas piney-woods country and a reminder of what one gift of land and a community's persistence can build.