Blinn College celebrated 140 years of service to its community on Monday during its monthly Board of Trustees meeting.

Current and former Blinn College officials and
trustees joined on Monday to celebrate the
College's 140th anniversary.
(courtesy Blinn College)Dr. Donald Voelter, who served as the College’s 12th president from 1994 through 2009, gave a presentation on the College’s history and its growth since being founded in 1883. Former trustees were also invited to share recollections of their tenure on the board.

The school was started by the Southern German Conference of the Methodist denomination as the Mission Institution. Its first class had three students. The school became coeducational in 1888 and was named Blinn Memorial College in 1889 after Rev. Christian Blinn, who donated a large amount of money on the school’s behalf.

Dr. Voelter said for a time, the student population was much younger than what would be seen on campus nowadays.

Blinn was organized into a junior college in 1927. In the coming years, conversations began about establishing a taxing district to support the College.

An election in 1937 to create a public junior college district and levy a tax was successful, making Blinn the first county-owned junior college district in Texas.

Blinn would eventually expand from Washington County into Brazos County, first offering night courses at the Allen Academy in Bryan in 1970. A full campus in Bryan was opened in 1997, the same year the College opened a campus in Schulenburg. A campus in Sealy followed in 2005. The latest development is Blinn’s opening of the Walter C. Schwartz Building at Texas A&M-RELLIS in 2018.

Click here to view the board's Monday meeting on YouTube.

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