NOTE: The TWU Board of Regents voted at its August 2020 meeting to rename the building due to F.M. Bralley's part in the forced relocation of nearly 60 Black families from the Quakertown community located just south of the college. The building now is named the Support Annex.
Do you ever wonder about the people for whom building on TWU campuses are named?
If you’ve been following this series, you’ve learned that campus building names honor early as well as more recent pioneers.
Today’s feature goes back to the early years.
Bralley Annex, located at the south end of the Denton campus, is named for Francis Marion Bralley, who served as the third president of what then was the College of Industrial Arts. According to the Texas State Historical Association, Bralley was a public school teacher and superintendent before being appointed chief clerk in the State Department of Education (later part of the Texas Education Agency). He served in other positions prior to becoming CIA president in 1914, a position he held for 11 years.
The college’s enrollment almost tripled and its first bachelor’s degrees were awarded during Bralley’s tenure. In the book “Rhetoric at the Margins,” author David Gold writes that Bralley was a strong advocate for the school and frequently declared, “As long as I have anything to do with it, the College of Industrial Arts will never be the tail of the educational kite of any other educational organization in Texas.”
The building that bears his name has a distinctive mural on its west side, designed by the director of the university’s art department. You can scroll through the Campus Art webpage for more information on this and other artistic touches on campus.
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This is the seventh story in an occasional series on the history behind TWU buildings.
Previous stories:
Part I — Stoddard Hall
Part II — Student Union
Part III — Blagg-Huey Library
Part IV — Stark and Guinn residence halls
Part V – TWU T. Boone Pickens Institute of Health Sciences – Dallas Center
Part VI — Ann Stuart Science Complex