Reverend J.W.P. McKenzie opened a school in his home in Red River County, three miles southwest of Clarksville, Texas in 1841. In 1854, the school received a state charter and became known as McKenzie Institute until it changed its name to McKenzie College in 1860. The college also operated a plantation, with the proceeds supporting the school. As was common in pre-Civil War South, slaves worked on the plantation, and some parents exchanged slave labor for tuition. The number of students grew from sixteen in 1841 to average two hundred per year between 1854 and 1861. Attendance declined with the outbreak of the Civil War, and the school eventually closed. During the 1871 Methodist Conference held in Waxahachie Texas, Reverend McKenzie supported the establishment of Southwestern University in Georgetown.