FORT WORTH UNIVERSITY. Fort Worth University was chartered as Texas Wesleyan College by the Northern Methodist Church on June 6, 1881, and authorized to maintain the usual curricula and departments of a college and to confer the corresponding degrees. It opened in temporary quarters in Fort Worth on September 7, 1881, and was moved five years later to a site south of the city, where three stone buildings were erected on a ten-acre campus. The institution was affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church from 1881 to 1911. William Fielder was president. In June 1889 the trustees secured an amended charter under the name of Fort Worth University. The school of law was organized under the new charter in August 1893, and the school of medicine in July 1894. The institution belonged to the University Senate and offered courses in the arts and sciences that led to A.B., B.S., B.Litt., and Ph.D. degrees; in professional courses four years in medicine led to the M.D., and three years in law led to the LL.B. In 1910 an unsuccessful attempt was made to consolidate Fort Worth University with Polytechnic College. In 1911 the institution was joined with the Methodist Episcopal University at Oklahoma City.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Walter N. Vernon et al., The Methodist Excitement in Texas (Dallas: Texas United Methodist Historical Society, 1984). Donald W. Whisenhunt, The Encyclopedia of Texas Colleges and Universities (Austin: Eakin Press, 1986).

Clay Sandidge