Austin Hall Is the Room Where SHSU Began

Before Sam Houston State had a campus, Austin Hall was the campus. The building opened in 1851 as Austin College. A later Methodist school effort lasted less than a year, and the property went back to Huntsville for $346.

Sam Houston Normal Institute was established on the hill on April 21, 1879. When its doors opened on October 10, 110 students met four faculty members. Every class stayed in Austin Hall until Old Main gave the growing school another building. Even the hall's shape changed with enrollment: a third floor went on in 1882, then came off in 1927 after years of trouble with a leaking roof.

Fire changed the hill again on February 12, 1982. Old Main burned to the ground, and Austin Hall's roof was badly damaged. SHSU restored the hall and rededicated it in October 1986. During another restoration in 2012, crews kept the bricks carved with generations of student names instead of replacing them all.

Austin Hall is still used for university events. The small building has outlived two schools, a vanished third floor, and the fire next door, so SHSU's beginning remains a room people can still enter rather than a date on a plaque.