Eric Dickerson

Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church. 7,000 of the... University's 12,000 students are undergraduates. The university was chartered on April 17, 1911 by the five Annual Conferences in Texas of the United Methodist Church. Classes were originally planned to start in 1913 but were postponed until 1915. SMU was established as the unsuccessful attempt to relocate Southwestern University from Georgetown, Texas to either Fort Worth or Dallas. The first relocation effort by Polytechnic College president Hiram A. Boaz and spearheaded by Southwestern president Robert Stewart Hyer involved merging Southwestern with Polytechnic College . The post-merger university would retain the Southwestern name while occupying Polytechnic's campus in Fort Worth. The merger never came to fruition, primarily because the Dallas Chamber of Commerce set up a committee to raise funds and entice Southwestern to relocate to Dallas.
more

Sealy is a city in Austin County, Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. The population was 5,248 at the 2000 census. Sealy is located 50 miles west of the downtown Houston area. Sealy is located at 29°46′27″N 96°9′27″W /... 29.77417°N 96.1575°W / 29.77417; -96.1575 . According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.9 square miles , of which, 6.9 square miles of it is land and 0.04 square miles of it is water. San Felipe, Texas sold part of its original 22,000 acre township to Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad to create Sealy in 1879. In 1881, Daniel Haynes, a cotton gin builder, filled a request for a cotton-filled mattress which started a company. He named this the Sealy Mattress Company after the town. Business grew exponentially, which led to more innovation and several patents, such as a machine that compressed cotton. As of the census of 2000, there were 5,248 people, 1,882 households, and 1,349 families residing in the city. The population density was 759.3 people per square mile . There were 2,077 housing units at an average density of 300.
more