HAPPY 140TH SHSU!

The 1st Faculty and Student Body of Sam Houston Normal Institute (later named Sam Houston State University) stand in front of the Austin Hall Building, 1879.

Happy 140th year of providing an education to students, Sam Houston State University! It was on this date, October 10, 1879, that 110 students arrived by train, horse and buggy, or walking, to climb the hill to attend the first State funded public school for teachers in Texas.

The Sam Houston Normal Institute was brought into being by a bill in the Texas Legislature in 1879. This bill read as follows: “An Act to Establish a State Normal School to be Known as the Sam Houston Institute at Huntsville, Texas.” The Act was signed by Governor Oran Roberts on April 21, 1879 and the doors to the new Sam Houston Normal Institute were opened 6 months later.

To learn or see more of 140 years of Sam Houston State history come visit the SHSU University Archives in the Newton Gresham Library, Room 400. We are open Monday-Friday, 8-5.

Sexton Family Papers, 1844-1985

Franklin Barlow Sexton (1828-1900) was a successful lawyer, planter and member of the Texas Legislature in the 1850s. When the Civil War broke out, he served a time as a Confederate soldier before being selected as a representative of the Fourth Congressional District in the First Confederate House of Representatives. He served on various committees including: Commerce, War, Military and Tax. He was re-elected in August of 1863. This made him one of two Texans to have served on both terms of the Confederate Congress. After the war he relocated to San Augustin, Texas to continue  practicing law and served as attorney for the T. & P. Railway. His daughter, Loulie, married Harry F. Estill, a very popular and well-respected President of the Sam Houston State University who served in that office for 28 years.

The Sexton Family Papers comprises of correspondence, notes, business transactions and ephemera representing a part of the history of the life of Confederate Legislator, Franklin Barlow Sexton. The correspondence represents a wide range of personal and business communication. Some of the most common are in in regards to issues of deeds, receipts, requests for payment and memoranda. Newspaper clippings spanning a variety of topics, some of which are: agriculture, national defense, oil in Texas, poems and poets, churches and the history of Texas.

View a detailed finding aid of his collection at Sam Houston State University’s Archon page and see just what materials are in the collection.

https://archon.shsu.edu/index.php?utm_campaign=archon&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=blog&p=collections/controlcard&p=collections/controlcard&id=4

Tuition record for the Marshall Masonic Female Institute where two of Franklin Sexton’s daughters attended school.