Editing Texas Tech University (section)

=== Establishment ===
[[File:Texas Tech Adminstration Building 1923.jpg|left|thumb|[[Administration Building (Texas Tech University)|Administration Building]] (''circa'' 1925)]]
The call to open a college in [[West Texas]] began shortly after settlers arrived in the area in the 1880s.<ref name="Landing Tech may have been biggest step in Lubbock's first 100 years"/><ref name="Hub"/> In 1917, the Texas legislature passed a bill creating a branch of [[Texas A&M University|Texas A&M]] to be in [[Abilene, Texas|Abilene]].<ref name="Abilene home to three distinguished colleges"/> However, the bill was repealed two years later during the next session after it was discovered [[governor of Texas|Governor]] [[James E. Ferguson]] had falsely reported the site committee's choice of location. After new legislation passed in the state house and senate in 1921, Governor [[Pat Morris Neff|Pat Neff]] vetoed it, citing hard financial times in West Texas. Furious about Neff's veto, some in West Texas went so far as to recommend West Texas secede from the state.<ref name="Grad"/>

In 1923, the legislature decided, rather than a branch campus, a new university would better serve the region's needs under legislation co-authored by [[Texas State Senate|State Senator]] [[William H. Bledsoe]] of Lubbock and [[Texas House of Representatives|State Representative]] [[Roy Alvin Baldwin]] of [[Slaton, Texas|Slaton]] in southern [[Lubbock County, Texas|Lubbock County]].<ref name="Handbook"/>  On February 10, 1923, Neff signed the legislation creating Texas Technological College, and in July of that year, a committee began searching for a site.<ref name="Grad"/> When the committee's members visited Lubbock, they were overwhelmed to find residents lining the streets to show support for hosting the institution.<ref name="KCBD"/><ref name="Three universities power higher education in Lubbock"/> That August, Lubbock was chosen on the first ballot over other area towns, including [[Floydada, Texas|Floydada]], [[Plainview, Texas|Plainview]], [[Big Spring, Texas|Big Spring]], and [[Sweetwater, Texas|Sweetwater]].<ref name="KCBD"/> On November 22, 1923, Paul Whitfield Horn was selected as the university's first [[list of presidents of Texas Tech University|president]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Paul Whitfield Horn Made Texas Tech What It Is Today|url=https://www.ttu.edu/now/posts/2024/08/paul-whitfield-horn-made-texas-tech-what-it-is-today.php|publisher=Texas Tech University|access-date=2024-11-29}}</ref>

Construction of the college campus began on November 1, 1924.<ref name="Hub"/> Ten days later, the cornerstone of the [[Administration Building (Texas Tech University)|Administration Building]] was laid in front of 20,000 people. Speakers at the event included Governor Pat Neff; [[Amon G. Carter]]; Reverend E. E. Robinson, Colonel [[Ernest O. Thompson]]; and Representative [[Richard M. Chitwood]], the chairman of the House Education Committee, who became the first Texas Tech business manager. Chitwood served in the position only fifteen months; he died in November 1926.<ref name="Texas Tech University Archives"/> With an enrollment of 914 students—both men and women—Texas Technological College opened for classes on October 1, 1925.<ref name="College of Arts and Sciences"/><ref name="Joining of communities led to Lubbock"/><ref name="Texas Tech... The Unobserved Heritage"/> It was originally composed of four schools—Agriculture, Engineering, Home Economics, and Liberal Arts.<ref name="Handbook"/>

Military training was conducted at the college as early as 1925, but formal [[Reserve Officers' Training Corps]] training did not start until 1936. By 1939, the school's enrollment had grown to 3,890. Although enrollment declined during [[World War II]], Texas Tech trained 4,747 men in its [[armed forces]] training detachments.<ref name="Handbook"/> Following the war, in 1946, the college saw its enrollment leap to 5,366 from a low of 1,696 in 1943.<ref name="Raw Enrollment Data"/>
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