Mary Allen College — What the Records Reveal
Historical feature • Updated October 12, 2026
Mary Allen’s history in Crockett, Texas, includes education for Black women, an earlier closure and reopening, and a later struggle to survive. Texas’s historical marker identifies 1972 as its closing year.
The Amistad Research Center reports documentary evidence of junior-college activity continuing through 1977. We present that distinction rather than assign one unexplained closing date. Student records, catalogs and correspondence can complicate an accepted timeline; the surviving archive is itself part of this feature’s value.