Tarleton State University Campus Tour

Tarleton opened in 1899 on money left by John Tarleton, a cattleman who never married and wanted his fortune to educate the young people of Erath County. In 1917 it became a junior-college branch of Texas A&M, and it grew into a full university by 1973. The school's story is told through odd, much-loved landmarks, most of them built or paid for by students: stone gates, a bandstand, a sealed cannon, and a brick smokestack. This walk starts at the founder's marker on Washington Street and ends at his bronze statue on Military Drive.

Tarleton State University exists because of a cattleman's will. John Tarleton, orphaned young, spent decades clerking in dry goods before he took up ranching in Erath County in 1880, and when he died in 1895 he left most of his estate to educate the young people of the area. The college that carries his name opened in Stephenville in 1899, and much of its character comes from landmarks that generations of students built, paid for or defended.

Some of those landmarks are simply handsome, like the native-stone president's home that students largely built in 1923, now called the Trogdon House, and the stone gates on Washington Street funded by the classes of 1932 and 1934, which students drove through until they were closed to cars in 1984.

Others come with better stories. An old ROTC field gun was carried off by students from rival North Texas Agricultural College in 1928, proved too hard to tow and ended up in the Bosque River until a teacher hauled it out; its barrel was later welded in place. The 1923 brick smokestack from the old power plant, restored and painted with the Tarleton name in 1998, carries a legend about a rival who supposedly dropped a brick down its flue from an airplane.

It's a fun, story-packed stroll that explains why Tarleton pride runs so deep.