Harris, Thomas Green

Dates

• Existence: 1854 May 27 - 1934 January 26
• Existence: 1854-05-27 - 1934-01-26

Biography

Thomas G. Harris was born on 1854 May 27 and grew up in Tennessee earning his baccalaureate (1876) and master’s (1880) degrees from Carson-Newman College. He taught school in Georgia before he moved to Texas in 1879, where he became superintendent in many different cities in Texas including in Weatherford, Mansfield, Plano, Dallas, Houston and Austin. Harris married Lou Oglesby on 1886 December 21 and had four daughters and two sons together.

In 1903, the local board of education selected him as president of the newly created Southwest Texas State Normal School. In eight years leading the “San Marcos Normal,” he hired the original 16 faculty, the enrollment more than doubled, and the physical plant went from one to four buildings. As president, he taught classes, hired faculty, planned courses, conducted daily chapel services, drew up schedules and wrote the catalog. A strict disciplinarian and statewide temperance reformer, he endorsed Governor Oscar B. Colquitt’s opponent in the 1910 election; when Colquitt won, he asked for Harris’ resignation.

After he resigned in 1911, he remained in San Marcos and became the second president of the newly created Baptist Academy which neighbored the normal school campus. Harris retired in 1915, but later taught mathematics at Sul Ross College (now Sul Ross State University) for six years then went on to be superintendent of schools in San Benito for three years. He died in San Marcos on 1934 January 26.

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