November 2, 1871

Minutes from the meeting of the board of trustees show that the board and Professor Martin R. Forey of Chicago, Illinois, designated the site of the first building for Judson University. Judson University was a short-lived institution of higher education in Prospect Bluff—present-day Judsonia (White County). The institution stimulated the migration of Northern families to the area, thereby significantly increasing the population and refining the social atmosphere of this typical, mid-nineteenth-century river town. Judson University had an ambitious curriculum and an experienced staff but very little money. At the height of its operations, more than 100 scholars were at the university being instructed in biology, geology, English, math, foreign languages, theology, telegraphy, painting, and elocution by a faculty of five.