Alton W. Birdwell

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one bringin' it down the road to you. Alton W. Birdwell, born in 1870 near Elkhart in Anderson County, raised up in the Piney Woods of East Texas.

Now that right there is a beginning. No fancy schoolhouse handed to him, no silver anything. His early education came through home schooling, and when he needed money for later study, he got it the hard way: hand-molding clay bricks and hewing railroad ties.

There is something about a man who builds things with his hands before he goes off to build minds, and that detail says just about everything you need to know about Alton Birdwell before we even get started. He attended classes at the University of Texas, the University of Missouri, and the University of Chicago. Three universities.

Then in 1892 he took his first teaching position at Pleasant Retreat in Smith County. He worked his way up, serving as principal in Tyler, superintendent of schools in Troup, and superintendent of Smith County schools. By 1910 he was a professor of history at Southwest Texas State University.

In 1914 he married fellow teacher Maude Margaret Shipe. And still, he kept going. He took courses in normal school administration at Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was acclaimed for his work in education theory.

In 1916 he earned a master's degree from Peabody and returned to Southwest Texas State as dean of the faculty. Then came 1917, and a phone call, so to speak, that would redirect the rest of his life. Birdwell was appointed president of a newly-created institution: Stephen F.

Austin State Normal School. Brand new. Did not yet exist in any physical sense worth mentioning.

And then World War I stepped in and delayed the opening entirely, so Birdwell stayed at Southwest Texas State, serving the war effort through various defense groups, waiting on a school that existed mostly on paper and promise. In August 1922, Birdwell and his family arrived in Nacogdoches. You would think the hard part was over.

It was not. Delays in construction of the Austin building forced him to postpone the opening of the college in 1923. Now, a lesser man might have waited on the building.

Birdwell opened the institution in borrowed facilities. He selected the faculty, taught history himself, and worked with area schools to support the college he was building almost from thin air. He was equally resourceful in expanding the school through the nineteen-twenties as he was in protecting it when the Great Depression hit, fighting off collapsing enrollment and legislative cuts that could have ended the whole enterprise.

The school did not collapse. He did not let it. After his retirement in 1942, Birdwell did not go far.

He remained on the faculty and served as president emeritus until his death in 1954. Born near Elkhart in 1870, molding bricks and hewing ties to buy his education, and still standing at the institution he built when the end finally came. That is the kind of story a marker in Nacogdoches knows how to keep.

What the marker says

(1870-1954) Born near Elkhart in Anderson County, Alton W. Birdwell as reared in the Piney Woods of East Texas. His early education was provided through home schooling; he earned money for later study by hand-molding clay bricks and hewing railroad ties. Birdwell attended classes at the University of Texas, the University of Missouri, and the University of Chicago. His first teaching position was at Pleasant Retreat in Smith County in 1892. Birdwell served as principal in Tyler, superintendent of schools in Troup, and superintendent of Smith County schools. He became a professor of history at Southwest Texas State University (SWT) in 1910, and married fellow teacher Maude Margaret Shipe in 1914. He took courses in normal school administration at Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was acclaimed for his work in education theory. He earned a master's degree from Peabody in 1916 and returned to SWT as dean of the faculty. Birdwell was appointed president of the newly-created Stephen F. Austin State Normal School in 1917. Because World War I delayed the opening of the school, he remained at SWT, serving the war effort in various defense groups. In August 1922, Birdwell and his family arrived in Nacogdoches. Delays in construction of the Austin building forced him to postpone the opening of the college in 1923; he nevertheless opened the institution in borrowed facilities. Birdwell selected the faculty, taught history, and worked with area schools to support the college. He was equally resourceful in expanding the school in the 1920s and in protecting the college from collapsing enrollment and legislative cuts during the Great Depression. After his retirement in 1942, Birdwell remained on the faculty and served as president emeritus until his death. (1999)