University of North Texas

The University of North Texas is a multipurpose university on 500 acres in Denton, a northern suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. The school was founded by Joshua C. Chilton as a private college in 1890, when Denton was a rural, agricultural hamlet of 2,500. With the help of local civic leaders, Chilton established Texas Normal College and Teachers' Training Institute to prepare teachers and educate business and professional men for Texas. The first classes were held on September 16, 1890, on the second floor of the B. J. Wilson hardware store, on the northwest corner of the Denton county courthouse square. Chilton and the citizens who formed the corporation that operated the school did not receive a state charter until June 1891. By then the college occupied a permanent campus, purchased by a group of Dentonites called the syndicate, at the corner of Hickory and Avenue B streets. The city government financed and constructed the first building, and nearly 185 students of various ages attended during the first year. Grave financial difficulties confronted the institution during its first decade. To meet problems of funding, the original curriculum was shortened and a less qualified professoriate employed. John J. Crumley succeeded Chilton as president of the college in 1893, and he and state Senator Emory C. Smith of Denton secured the right for the college to confer state teaching certificates. Wording in the Texas law granting this power accidentally changed the school's name to North Texas Normal College. After Crumley left to head another normal college in Tennessee, Menter B. Terrill leased NTNC from the city and became the institution's third president. Under Terrill, North Texas enjoyed its greatest financial success while a private college. He enrolled a large number of precollege-age pupils from the surrounding area in a preparatory course of study, but also awarded 268 teaching certificates and twenty-four bachelor's degrees during his presidency. Despite Terrill's accomplishments, Denton leaders were interested in a state owned and operated college for their city. In 1899 Charles V. Terrell, state senator from Decatur, introduced the bill in the Texas legislature for a state charter. The town fathers' ambitions were realized when the legislature approved and Governor Joseph D. Sayers signed the bill into law on March 31, 1899. Money to fund North Texas Normal College was not appropriated until two years later. By then Joel S. Kendall had become the school's chief executive officer. Kendall, who had been State Superintendent of Public Instruction, refused to use the word "college," which he believed was pretentious for the new state institution. He sought to raise teacher preparation standards, but his untimely death in 1906 limited his success in this regard.

William H. Bruce, a mathematician, assumed the presidency. Through his efforts North Texas achieved senior college status and conferred bachelor's degrees by 1917. Under Bruce, teacher training was emphasized, and a teachers' demonstration school, or laboratory school, was begun. Enrollment climbed, the curriculum expanded, new buildings were erected, and student life developed in a recognizable pattern. Although sporting teams had existed since 1902, when a boys' football team and a girls' basketball team were started, a regularized, intercollegiate program was not begun until J. W. "Dad" Pender became director of athletics in 1913. By the time Bruce retired in 1923 enrollment had reached 4,736, and North Texas had become the largest teacher training institution in the southwestern United States. By then it had received membership in the Association of Texas Colleges and Universities (1919) and the American Association of Teachers Colleges and Universities (1921), and had its name changed to North Texas State Teachers College at Denton (1923). The school was accredited by the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States in 1925. During the 1920s enrollment continued to rise, and the faculty improved their credentials. Beginning with the stock market collapse in 1929 and through the mid-1930s funding declined, salaries slumped, and student attendance dipped. After a brief upsurge in enrollment during the late 1930s, World War II began, and enrollment fell once more, professors left to serve in the Armed Forces, and intercollegiate sports were temporarily suspended. The period immediately after 1945 was one of renewal and expansion to meet pent-up wartime demand. Two men served as presidents during these years: Robert L. Marquis, 1923–34, and W. J. McConnell, 1934–51. Marquis was the first native Texan to become president. His most significant accomplishment was an effort toward a graduate program for the school, which was achieved after his death. Master's degree students first enrolled in September 1935.