By 1938, it was obvious that further expansion of Lamar College would impose an unsustainable financial burden on the South Park school district. Given a choice of finding a wider financial base for the college or of curtailing what appeared to be a bright future of growth and expansion, college and community leaders turned to the idea of an enlarged junior college district. A 1929 legislative act provided for the formation of such districts through the combination of contiguous public school districts. The only requirement was approval of the majority of qualified voters of the proposed district.
A committee of the Young Men's Business League, working closely with officials of Lamar College and the school board of South Park, spearheaded the task of creating a union junior college district. Early plans called for a district composed of the Beaumont, South Park, French, Nederland and Port Neches school districts, but opposition in the latter two districts caused them to be dropped. In an election Sept. 21, 1940, voters approved the creation of a Lamar Union Junior College District, the issuance of bonds to construct an entirely new college facility, a new tax for support and maintenance and the election of trustees to govern the college.
The 21 months between the election of September 1940 and June 8, 1942, the day classes were first held on the new campus, was a period of significant transition. The newly elected board of trustees secured the agreement of the South Park Board to continue operation of the college until June 2, 1941. On that day, even though the college still occupied the old campus, the new board assumed operational control, and the cord that had tied the college to the South Park district was officially cut.
On June 1, 1942, as the college was moving to the new campus, John E. Gray assumed the presidency. The location of the new campus was predestined by an action of the South Park board of trustees several years prior to the creation of the junior college district. In 1938, the board purchased a 58-acre tract of land on Port Arthur Highway, just three blocks east of what was then the Lamar campus.
The tract was most unattractive, having been used as a tank farm for oil storage, but the Texaco Company was willing to sell it for $18,000. One of the first actions of the Lamar Union Junior College District board of trustees was to purchase this land from the South Park board for cost and fees. By December 1941, the last major construction contract had been awarded; by the end of the spring sufficient buildings had been completed for the college to be moved to its new quarters.
Lamar University's third decade, coinciding closely with the period during which the Lamar Union Junior College District existed, saw the hardships of war, the boom of post-war, and the struggle to become a four-year state college. The war years were difficult ones at Lamar; enrollment dropped drastically, and numerous administrators and faculty went into service, including President Gray who served in the Navy for a little more than a year.
The academic year 1945-46 saw the return of Gray, and a deluge of students as the post-war boom hit Lamar. This boom, which swamped all of the senior colleges and universities in Texas, gave new force to the idea that Lamar should become a senior college. Four-year status for Lamar had been discussed in past years, but no action had been taken. In December 1946, the Lamar board of trustees decided to ask the Texas Legislature to make Lamar a four-year state college. The board was under no illusion that securing state support would be an easy task; no junior college in Texas had ever changed to state-supported senior college status.
