What changed it were the schools. In 1890 the Texas Normal College — today the University of North Texas, one of the largest universities in the state — opened its doors, and in 1901 the Girls' Industrial College, now Texas Woman's University, followed. Two universities in a town this size set the tempo: tens of thousands of students, a year-round calendar of concerts and games and festivals, and a downtown that has been a college town's downtown for well over a century. UNT's music school alone grew into one of the largest in the nation.
Our Denton logo carries the Texas longhorn and Lone Star over “Texas Republic · Est. 1845,” the year Texas joined the Union — the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Texas place. Printed in a distressed black-and-white that reads like an old brand iron or a rodeo poster, the longhorn is Texas in shorthand: ranch country, independence, the Lone Star. What makes this one Denton is the town behind it — the courthouse square, the two universities, and the music that turned a North Texas county seat into “Little Austin.”
Why People Visit Denton
Denton offers the energy of a music town and the ease of a small Texas city — a beautiful courthouse square, a deep live-music calendar, two universities, and a creative streak that earned it the nickname “Little Austin.” It's walkable, friendly, and unmistakably North Texas.
