Washington Square

First Home of Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College

Washington Square, a historic Nacogdoches center from the inception of the old Nacogdoches University in the 1840s, became in 1904 a part of the Nacogdoches Independent School District (NISD). When the facilities on the 208-acre campus of the new Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College were not ready for occupancy in 1923, President Alton W. Birdwell turned to the citizens of Nacogdoches for assistance. Birdwell's old friend and University of Texas roommate, R. F. Davis, Superintendent of Schools, made the NISD facilities available to Birdwell and the college community. These included the buildings on Washington Square: the high school building, the old stone fort once located on the square, and the grammar school.

Stephen F. Austin's students, most of them natives of East Texas, began their college careers in the "Old University Building," following in the footsteps of the Old Nacogdoches University pupils. For most of the first semester, the Stephen F. Austin students and faculty shared facilities with Nacogdoches High School. The buildings and area around Washington Square became the center of campus and social life as the college began to take its place as a vital part of Nacogdoches life.

The new college campus was complete in 1924. On April 30 of that year, students and townspeople met in the high school auditorium for a final program. Every 1924 graduate of Nacogdoches High School went on to college, a number virtually unknown in East Texas. What had begun as a difficult birth for the new college resulted in the establishment of a lasting tradition of cooperation and mutual achievement between the city of Nacogdoches and the Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College. (1999).