Duty and Doctrine: The Origin Story of Southwestern University

trustees. The majority of the board likely expected the school to be located in Chappell Hill. The efforts that resulted, however, led to the opening of Southwestern University in Georgetown four years later. Mood immediately began to travel across Texas to gain approval for his plan to form one central university. Because Texas now had five Methodist Conferences representing competing regions of the state, most thought his chance of success very small. He visited sessions in Henderson, Paris, Weatherford, Goliad, and LaGrange. After these arduous journeys, Mood received approval from all the conferences, estab- lishing a Joint Education Convention involving delegates from each of the five regions. That group held its first meeting at Galveston in April 1870. J. W. P. McKenzie was one of the early supporters of these efforts. As the dean of Texas educators and a highly regarded leader in North and East Texas, his support was essential to Mood’s success. McKenzie was an alternate delegate to the first session of the convention. At a later meeting in Waxahachie, he was a delegate and elected to preside. At that time, the Education Convention named the planned school Texas University and formed the Texas University Company in Corsicana in November 1871. TUC elected F.A. Mood as regent (or president) of the school on December 21, 1872. He did not, though, resign his position at Soule until three months later. In the interim, between April 1871 and summer 1872, Mood sought out support for the new institu- tion and considered proposals for its location from several Texas communities. Georgetown was one of these and may have already been Mood’s choice. The city’s proposal included the deed to a large two-story building designed as a school structure. Construction In the summer of 1888, 42-year-old Melville B. Lockett sold his business in Bertram and moved 20 miles east to Georgetown, Texas. He and his wife, Annie Johnson Lockett, were committed to providing a quality education for their daughters. Southwestern University, established in Georgetown 15 years earlier, promised an opportunity to do so. For the next 25 years and beyond, the lives of M. B. Lockett and his family were closely interwoven with the school. In 1894 Lockett was selected to serve on the Executive Committee of the Southwestern University Board of Trustees. He remained on the board for nearly 20 years, spending 12 of those as the chair. During Lockett’s time as committee leader, the university planned and completed a new main building on a second campus three blocks east of the original. That site was also near the Lockett home, which enabled him to keep a close eye on construction. Completed in 1900, the (Roy and Lillie) Cullen Building continues to function as the University’s administrative center. In the years following the completion of the new building, attempts were made to relocate Southwestern to a more urban setting in Fort Worth or Dallas. However, a group of Georgetown citizens, led by Lockett, organized to keep the school in their community. With his fellow Georgetown leaders A. A. Booty and E. G. Gillett, Lockett published a small pamphlet stating the case against relo- cation. In June 1912, the Board of Trustees defeated, with approximately a two-thirds majority, the proposal to move Southwestern to Dallas. Melvin Lockett was a major force in that effort. — Rev. Milton Jordan ’62 ...MOOD SUGGESTED TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES THAT THEY TURN THEIR ENERGIES TOWARD A UNITED UNDERTAKING BY ALL TEXAS METHODISTS TO FORM ONE NEW UNIVERSITY FOR THE SOUTHWEST.  Methodist clergyman John Witherspoon Pettigrew McKenzie began classes in a small log structure attached to the side of his home. M.B. LOCKETT AND THE ROY AND LILLIE CULLEN BUILDING 8 Southwestern MAGAZINE 1860 After more than a decade of teaching, McKenzie sought out a charter with the state that would reflect its Methodist leanings. The charter was granted in 1860 . 1862 Enrollment had severely diminished due to potential students leaving to fight in the Civil War. The last man to receive a degree from McKenzie College did so in 1862. 1868 After years of running his school alone and problems throughout the Civil War, McKenzie College was closed for good. McKenzie joined Dr. Francis Asbury Mood’s effort to unify the Methodist institutions of Texas.