Austin Hall

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, there are buildings, and then there are buildings. Austin Hall is the kind that just keeps on working.

Erected in 1851 as the original building of Austin College, this place didn't sit around collectin' dust. It got to work educating people, and it stayed at that work continuously for Austin College all the way through 1876. Twenty-five years of students coming and going through those doors, learning whatever it was Austin College saw fit to teach them.

Then 1876 rolls around, and you might think the story slows down. It doesn't. A private academy stepped right in and kept the lights on from 1876 to 1879.

No gap, no pause, no dark years. Just a handoff and carry on. And then, in 1879, Sam Houston State Teachers College took the wheel.

That is the kind of legacy most buildings only dream about. Three different institutions, one continuous purpose, one building standing through all of it. Austin Hall didn't just survive the changing of the guard.

It was the reason they kept showing up.

What the marker says

Austin Hall, the original building of Austin College, erected in 1851 and used continuously for educational purposes by Austin College to 1876, by a private academy from 1876 to 1879, by Sam Houston State Teachers College from 1879.