Lon Morris College was the oldest junior college in Texas. It was founded in 1873 in Kilgore by Dr. Isaac Alexander, a pioneer educator, as Alexander Institute. In 1875 it became the property of the East Texas conference of the Methodist Church, now the Texas conference, and it was moved to Jacksonville in 1894. A junior college since 1912, it was renamed Alexander College in 1916 and retitled in 1924 to honor Pittsburg, Texas, banker R.A. (Lon) Morris. It was the first junior college in Texas with a Phi Theta Kappa scholarship fraternity and was also a member of the Southern Association of Colleges longer than any other junior college in the state.