On the afternoon of December 7, 1941, the Sam Houston State Teachers College (SHSTC) community and Huntsville, Texas, got word of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Following the United States’ entry into World War II, many students, professors, and administrators, enlisted in the military. While the 1941-42 year had 1237 students, the following 1942-43 year only had 786 regularly enrolled students, and 1943 only 561, with the large majority being women.

In 1942, SHSTC president Charles N. Shaver died and Harmon L. Lowman, interim president, was officially put into office. As a veteran of World War I, he quickly identified the challenges the end of the war would bring and expanded the school’s mission to support soldiers returning home. The college curriculum was widened to reflect the war, with classes offered in “Ground School” and “Flying” via the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Other courses included machine shop production, secretarial studies, radio and telegraphy, meteorology, and home nursing. Lowan additionally arranged several contracts with the government to train Army personnel at SHSTC, the largest of which was a clerks school, which brought 1,462 men to campus in fall of 1943.

By 1943, the number of SHSTC “Boys in the Service” had risen to 696, which did not include those missing or killed during the war. Keeping with his mission, Lowan opened the Josey School of Vocational Education in spring of 1945 to provide vocational training to returning soldiers.

On September 2, 1945, World War II ended, marking the beginning of an era of postwar growth for SHSTC. The return of those engaged by the war, along with the new G.I. Bill, which provided financial assistance to veterans to attend college, brought a new flood of students to the college. In 1946-47, enrollment broke all previous records, with 1853 students, 952 being veterans, in attendance.

SHSTC faced a housing crisis which caused Lowan to seek an unconventional solution. In April of 1943, the War Department had opened Huntsville Alien Internment Camp, more commonly called “Camp Huntsville.” It was one of nearly seventy POW camps in Texas, which would be used to fill the labor gap left by the military’s needs. After the end of the war, German POWs were repatriated, and Japanese POWs enrolled in re-education programs on American democracy, civil liberties, and constitutional government. SHSTC professors helped teach the program, which was nation’s only re-education program for Japanese POWs. After Camp Huntsville was vacated, Harmon would “purchase” it for one dollar. The 837 acres, 405 structures, and heavy machinery would become SHSTC’s “Country Campus” and would quickly become Walker County’s second most popular center until the mid-1950s.