The Battle Oaks are three intertwined oak trees that have existed since the Civil War. When word reached Austin that northern troops were advancing from Galveston, all oak trees in the area except for the Battle Oaks were cut down so that a fortress could be built on the hill to protect the capitol Another threat arose almost fifty years after the University was founded when plans to construct the Biology Laboratories would have destroyed the trees. Dr. William J. Battle, for whom the trees are named, led a successful movement to save the trees and the building’s planned location was moved.

The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university and the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. Although forty acres were set aside on College Hill for the campus in 1839, the university formally opened in 1883 with one building, six schools, eight professors and 221 students. Today the main campus, located a quarter mile from the Texas State Capitol in central Austin, has 150 buildings and covering more than 350 acres and the University is home to over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 15 colleges and schools and more than 3,000 faculty.