Central College - Fayette, Missouri - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

CENTRAL COLLEGE, north end of Main St, is a co-educational, four-year school.  Fifteen brick and stone buildings of modified Classic and Gothic design are at the center of a landscaped 42-acre campus.  Successor to a series of Howard County schools which began with Franklin Academy in 1820,  Central College was established in 1844 as Howard High School by Reverend William T. Lucky.  Within a year it was made c0-educational, and came under the control of the Missouri Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.  Enrollment jumped from 80 in 1844 to 312 in 1853, more than 3 times the State university enrollment of that time.  Four years later, the high school was reorganized as a college and opened with two separate branches; Central College for men, and Howard Female College, later called Howard-Payne College.  In 1922, these were re-united as the present Central College. - Missouri: Guide to the "Show Me" State, Tour 1, pgs 350-51.

Now know as Central Methodist University the campus has grown slightly to over 55 acres and has 3,500 student.  Many of the buildings present when the guide was written continue to serve the University.  The campus is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.