 Durant, Oklahoma Schools  In
1901 John Tulloch, Sherman, Texas, architect, designed a building for
the Indian Territory that would, in the course of the next two decades,
house the Presbyterian College of Durant, the Southeastern State Normal
School (later named Southeastern Oklahoma State University), Durant
High School, and a middle school or junior high for Durant's seventh
and eighth grades. What became of the school building after the
early 1920s is not known at this time. The land on which it sat
is now occupied by Washington Irving Elementary School at 812 W. Locust
Street in Durant.  The building was designed for the Presbyterian College of Durant and cost $11,000 to construct. If you look closely at the largest of the attached images, you can barely make out the name on the front of the building.  The Presbyterians closed the college on April 1, 1909, and sold the main building to the city of Durant. They then took the proceeds of the sale and moved of a mile west to construct a new $60,000 building, which opened in 1910 as the Oklahoma Presbyterian College. Originally co-ed like its predecessor, it would become a junior college for women by 1920. It closed in 1966. (Photograph of the dining room at Oklahoma Presbyterian College for girls) Since 1976, when it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the old Oklahoma Presbyterian College building has been used as the headquarters of the Choctaw Nation.  Tulloch's 1901 Durant Presbyterian College building was purchased by Durant for use as a high school. Almost immediately the city postponed that plan and offered instead to allow the building to be used as temporary quarters for the new Southeastern State Normal School, which had been authorized by the state legislature in March of 1909.  Classes began in June and continued through the end of the year and also throughout 1910, while the Normal School's first permanent building was being constructed in a former peach orchard in the northeastern part of the city. That building, which would eventually be named Morrison Hall, was ready for occupancy in January of 1911. After Southeastern moved to its permanent location, the city returned to its plan to make the old Durant Presbyterian College building the new high school. It served in that capacity until another new high school was built in 1919-1920. When that building opened in September of 1920, seventh and eighth grades were moved into the old high school to relieve pressure on the city's three ward schools.  A postcard with a postmark of April 7, 1910 shown below, identifies the building as the "Presbyterian College, Durant, Oka.;" it had actually been closed and sold to the city more than a year earlier.   Dr. Hotchkin's Divinity Degree was conferred on him by Austin College, Sherman  Dr. Hotchkins & Mrs. Maria Emiline Moore Hotchkin  Find-a-Grave Memorial  John Tulloch Biography Index Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |