William Leonidas Mayo - Commerce, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 33° 14.568 W 095° 54.322
15S E 229292 N 3681969
Founder and first president of East Texas Normal College (now Texas A&M University-Commerce).
Waymark Code: WM11D9G
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 10/01/2019
Views: 1
Texas State Historical Association"William Leonidas Mayo was born on November 3, 1861, in Prestonburg, Kentucky. He received his bachelor of arts degree in 1883 from Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana. After graduation he served nearly three years as head of Cedar Bluff Academy in Virginia.
He traveled to Texas in 1886. In 1889 he founded East Texas Normal College, a private teacher's college. When the college was destroyed by fire in 1894 Mayo moved the institution to its present site in Commerce. By 1917 the school had grown to an enrollment of almost 2000 students. Seeking to ensure permanence of his institution, Mayo begun to lobby for an appropriation from the Texas legislature to purchase the college and make it a part of the state system.
On March 14, 1917, he received word in Commerce that the House of Representatives had passed the bill that appropriated the funds for the purchase of the school. While walking back to the college from the telegraph office, he suffered a heart attack. He died a few minutes later.
The college became a part of the Texas A&M University in 1996. It is the alma mater of Sam Rayburn, the longest serving Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The statue shows a man standing wearing a suit with a long frock coat, a vest, and a bow tie. His left hand is holding his lapel. His right hand is holding a tablet or book. He has short hair and a large mustache.