LeTourneau University

LeTourneau University, a private, nondenominational, evangelical Christian institution, is located on 162 acres in Longview, Gregg County. In 1946 Robert Gilmour LeTourneau, a noted Christian industrialist, and his wife, Evelyn, founded the school in the recently abandoned Harmon General Hospital, a World War II installation that they discovered when they visited East Texas in search of a site for a new manufacturing plant. With the help of Carl L. Estes, publisher of the Longview News, and other civic leaders the LeTourneaus were able to purchase the 156 acres and 220 buildings of the hospital from the United States government for only one dollar. They were not to receive clear title to the property for a ten-year period, during which the government could reclaim the property in an emergency. They agreed that no buildings were to be removed during that time and that on the premises they would establish a trade school for war veterans. A few blocks away LeTourneau established his plant, R. G. LeTourneau, Incorporated.

The state of Texas issued a charter to LeTourneau Technical Institute of Texas on February 20, 1946, and classes began on April 1, 1946. The institute accepted only male students, most of whom were veterans. During the first two years of operation the school was divided into an academy that offered the junior and senior years of high school and a college division that offered two-year trade-school courses and a four-year course in technology. Students worked on a plan by which one-half attended classes three days each week while the other half worked at the LeTourneau plant. This work met the laboratory requirements of the industrial courses. The alternate-day scheduling continued until 1961.