Louis Houck is the "Father of Southeast Missouri" – a true renaissance man: lawyer, journalist, developer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, educator, and historian.
Houck, a self-taught railroader, is primarily remembered today for constructing a provincial railroad system. These “Houck Roads,” as his networks came to be known, and the accompanying industrial revolution, helped transform Cape Girardeau and southeast Missouri, ushering in a period of pronounced commercial, physical, and social development at the turn of the 20th century.
But Louis Houck also strove to make art, culture, and formal education available to all social classes in southeast Missouri.
From 1887 to 1925, Houck served 38 years on the university’s Board of Regents; 36 of those as president – an unmatched record of service. With President Washington Dearmont, Houck presided over arguable the most dynamic period in our school’s history, as Southeast established its identity as an institution of higher education.
The university’s 1925 eulogy offers a proper tribute:
“The interests of higher education found in him a devoted friend and a staunch advocate. He was an empire builder who brought to the cause of education the same indomitable spirit with which he built the highways of progress through the swamps of this section of Missouri… It is not an exaggeration to say that… this college became the ruling passion of his life, and that in the years to come the Southeast Missouri State Teachers College, for which he wrought so well, and did so much, will be his proudest monument.”
