Hendrix College: From Altus Schoolroom to Liberal Arts Gem

Hendrix College was not born in Conway. It started in eighteen seventy-six as Central Institute, a twenty-pupil schoolroom in Altus, Arkansas, founded by the Reverend Isham Burrow of the Methodist Church. The school grew steadily, adding secondary and then collegiate courses, and in eighteen eighty-nine it was renamed Hendrix College to honor Bishop Eugene R.

Hendrix. One year later the board of trustees moved the entire institution east to Conway, sensing the railroad town's momentum. It has remained in Conway ever since, growing into one of the South's most respected liberal arts colleges, still affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

Conway itself became home to three colleges in close proximity, earning the informal title of the City of Colleges. The original Altus campus is long gone, but Hendrix's journey across Arkansas remains one of the state's more unusual stories of institutional ambition.