08/04/2024
Women's basketball team at Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas September 1, 1925.
Samuel Huston College, a coeducational school for African Americans in Austin, Texas, developed from a plan projected in 1876 by the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1883 an agreement with the Freedmen's Aid Society resulted in the purchase of a six-acre plot on which the college was built. A gift of $9,000 was received from Samuel Huston of Marengo, Iowa, for whom the institution was named. In 1898 a contract was let for a one-story building; the first president of the college, Dr. Reuben S. Lovinggood, arrived in Austin in the fall of 1900, and the first term opened with an enrollment of eighty. H. S. White of Romeo, Michigan, donated five hundred volumes to the school library.
By 1905 the enrollment was 419; in 1906 it reached 517. Courses ranged from elementary grades through college, including instruction in blacksmithing, bookkeeping, teaching, and preaching. In 1916 the school plant was enlarged to fifteen acres, and substantial buildings, including a laboratory, a laundry, and an industrial building were added. In 1927 Samuel Huston was recognized by the state department of education as a class A senior college. The teacher placement bureau was an added department; the premedical course was accepted by the American Medical Association as meeting its requirements. On October 24, 1952, Samuel Huston College officially merged with Tillotson College to form Huston-Tillotson College. [Bio and Photo: Heritage Society of Austin]
