The Lon Morris College Millenium Mural
by Lee Jamison
at the Vivian and Bob Smith Gymnasium
on the campus of Lon Morris College,
Jacksonville, Texas
To see the text only version, Click here.
The Mural
Campus Views
Along the top of the mural on both sides one can see aerial views of
the campuses. Starting on the left and proceeding to the right these are:
Alexander
College, Jacksonville, present day location, 1924. Here is the campus
as it appeared when Alexander College became Lon Morris College. The most
important difference between this image and that of the 1912 campus is
the new women's dormitory which was built in 1915 to replace the "Sunset
Dorm" after it had burned on March 6th 1914. This building is notable as
the first to be designed for the school by S. W. Ray. For the next 50 years
every major new campus building would be designed by Ray.
New Danville
Masonic Female Academy, New Danville, ca. 1858. The original log building,
built about 1850, burned on December 31, 1857. We could only speculate
as to the log structure's appearance.
Alexander Collegiate
Institute, Kilgore, ca. 1884. In 1873 the New Danville school was moved
to the town of Kilgore to be nearer the new I.&G.N. Railroad. There
it became the property of the Methodist Church. Shown here is the second
"main building" on the Kilgore campus.
Alexander Collegiate
Institute, first Jacksonville campus, ca. 1906. Jacksonville was, in
the 1890's, the seat of the East Texas Conference of the Methodist Church
and a major hub for railroads in East Texas. In 1894 the city offered Alexander
Institute the nearly new brick building of the ailing Sunset Institute,
shown here in the center foreground, and added music and classroom facilities,
shown on the right. A women's dormitory, shown on the far upper left, was
built that year, possibly on the site of the present-day Moody building.
We have chosen to show it in that location because the evidence for other
possible locations is, at present, too thin. The reason this location no
longer houses the school is represented in the railroad locomotive in the
foreground. The T. & N.O. Railroad, which came to Jacksonville in 1906,
established a freight yard just a hundred yards from the school. The noise
from this yard made it difficult to hold classes, so it was decided to
move the campus two blocks to the southwest.
The "ACI" athletic
logo worn on the baseball uniforms of Alexander Institute during the
teens.
Alexander Collegiate Institute, second (present) Jacksonville
campus, 1912. Dominating the image is the romantic Twin Towers building
so many people carry in their hearts as the image of Lon Morris College.
Built to be the largest building in Jacksonville the Twin Towers would
be the center of campus life for fifty years. Behind the Twin Towers is
the women's dormitory which was the school's original twin towered building
and in this image stands as the oldest building on campus. On the left
is the new men's dormitory, built by the school's trustees at their own
expense. Between the men's dorm and the Twin Towers one can find the football
field where the Bearcats first fielded a team in 1912 and first won a championship
in 1913.
Lon Morris College,
ca. 1935. From the 1930's to 1950 the appearance of the campus changed
very little. The greatest changes from the 1924 image were the addition
of Lula Morris Hall in 1925 and Kiwanis Gymnasium in 1930. These buildings
can be seen across College street from Smith Hall. Across from the Twin
Towers one can see "Pop's Shack", which served as the college bookstore
through the thirties and forties.
The Logo for
Lon Morris which has been in use since the 1970's
Lon Morris College, ca.
1963. The school is in the middle of a massive building campaign which,
from 1953 to 1968, created a completely new plant on the existing campus.
Of the old buildings only Smith Hall, the now renamed and painted London
Hall (the old women's building),Kiwanis Gym, and Lula Morris Hall remain.
New to the campus are the A Frank Smith Fine Arts building (1954), the
new library and administration complex (1961), the science building (1961),
the Scurlock Center (1959), and Fair Hall (1956). Soon to come are a new
Gym (1964), two new men's dorms (Clark Hall, 1965, and Brown Hall, 1968),
and a new classroom building (Moody, 1968). For many the razing of the
Twin Towers to make room for the new administration building is a tragic
loss. The blandness of this efficient new plant does little to help them
through their grief, but it does assure the survival of the school through
the remainder of the century.
Lon Morris
College, January, 2000. This is how Lon Morris's campus appears at
the time this is written. The only remaining building from the first plant
on this site is the old Smith-Turner Hall, now being used to house the
Art department. The most prominent new building is the chapel built in
1986. Behind that is the Craven Wilson Dormitory built in 1974. The campus
today is several times the size of the campus first occupied in 1909 and
much of the land visible in this image, but not part of the campus, is
owned by the school.
Continue to page 3
See more work by Lee Jamison at www.muralist.cc
E-mail Lee Emmerich Jamison