Texas State University Campus Tour

Texas State climbs a limestone hill above the headwaters of the San Marcos River, a setting few Texas campuses can match. It opened in 1903 as Southwest Texas State Normal School, a teacher-training college whose most famous graduate, Lyndon B. Johnson, finished here in 1930. This walk starts at the library that holds the Wittliff Collections, crosses the Quad past the university's two best-known statues, visits the turreted Old Main, and then drops down to the spring-fed river at Sewell Park and Spring Lake.

Few Texas campuses have a setting like Texas State's: a limestone hill in San Marcos rising above the springs that feed the San Marcos River. This walk mixes history, art and literature with the spring-fed water at the foot of the hill.

Old Main is the campus icon. Opened in 1903 as the first building of Southwest Texas State Normal School, and for several years its only one, the red-brick Victorian Gothic hall bristles with corner towers, steep gables and pointed windows and is listed on the National Register. The school's most famous graduate, Lyndon B. Johnson, earned his degree here in 1930. Anna Hyatt Huntington's roughly 17-foot Fighting Stallions, given in 1951, is another campus favorite, its base a popular place to sit before class.

The Wittliff Collections, on the top floor of the Alkek Library, preserve the literature, photography and music of the Southwest and Mexico, with free rotating exhibits. Down by the water, Spring Lake wells up from hundreds of Edwards Aquifer springs at a nearly constant 72 degrees. The former Aquarena Springs theme park is now the university's Meadows Center, which protects several endangered species, and glass-bottom boats have been crossing the lake since 1945.

It's an easy way to take in history, art and natural beauty in a single outing.