LA GRANGE FEMALE INSTITUTE. La Grange Female Institute, in La Grange, Fayette County, was planned in the summer of 1845 and opened on September 15, 1845, by Mrs. Virginia S. Mayo. Opening sessions were announced in January and April 1846. The fourteen incorporators listed in the charter of May 11, 1846, included James S. Mayfield, John G. Chalmers, and R. E. B. Baylor.^qqv The nondenominational school was to occupy a two-story wooden structure; tuition was set at $2.50 monthly. The school probably closed before 1850, when Marcus A. Montrose, formerly of La Grange Female Institute, took charge of La Grange Collegiate Institute.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: William Franklin Ledlow, History of Protestant Education in Texas (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1926). Johanna Caroline Walling, Early Education in Fayette County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1941).