Austin College Campus Tour

Austin College was chartered in 1849 at Huntsville, where Sam Houston and other statesmen of the young Republic sat on its early boards, and it relocated to Sherman in 1876. It still carries its original name and charter, a point of pride its own historical marker spells out. This short loop starts at that marker, visits the hall Sherman's citizens paid for after a 1913 fire, climbs toward the chapel tower that anchors the skyline, and ends among the library and science buildings on Richards Street.

Austin College received its charter in 1849 and still operates under that charter and name, a rare claim in Texas. The school began in Huntsville under the leadership of Presbyterian missionary Daniel Baker. War and yellow fever epidemics emptied Huntsville, and in 1876 the college relocated north to Sherman.

Sherman Hall shows how much the town valued the college. When fire destroyed the main building in 1913, residents raised roughly $50,000 to rebuild. The new hall once held nearly all of campus life, and its auditorium hosted Harry Houdini in the 1920s and, in 1919, ex-president William Howard Taft.

Wynne Chapel, opened in 1958, has a tower holding a 24-bell carillon cast in the Netherlands, and it dominates the skyline. On the science side, the Adams Observatory sits on the roof of a modern research building with a 24-inch telescope. The visit is a good look at a small liberal arts college with more than 175 years of Texas history behind it.