Liberty Normal and Business College

Liberty Normal and Business College was a nonsectarian institution established in 1884 in Liberty Hill, Williamson County. This prosperous town of some 450 inhabitants on the Austin and Northwestern Railroad had built a new schoolhouse in 1882–83 and subsequently petitioned the state legislature to establish a college there. In 1884 the legislature chartered the school and granted it the credentials formerly issued to the defunct Oak Grove College. Liberty Normal opened in January 1885 with E. M. Coleman as its first president and had four teachers and 166 students by 1892. Its curriculum around 1900 included humanities and science courses, as well as telegraphy, music, and commercial training. The college declined in the early twentieth century, however, and closed in 1910, when its buildings were turned over to the public school system.