Murray State College, is a public, co-educational community college located in southeastern Oklahoma with the main campus located in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. The college is named in honor of former Oklahoma Governor William H. "Alfalfa Bill" Murray. Murray State College also maintains a smaller campus in Ardmore, Oklahoma as one of four state higher education institutions that participate at the Ardmore Higher Education Center (the other three are Oklahoma State University, Southeastern State University, and East Central University). Murray State College was established the Murray State School of Agriculture in accordance with a law passed by the first Oklahoma Legislature (approved May 20, 1908). Its first students, numbering about 100, were primarily Chickasaw and Choctaw. Federal funding paid for two dormitories opended in 1916 for Native American students. On March 17, 1924, the Oklahoma Legislature approved a measure to enable the institution to teach the first two years of higher educational instruction, and it become a community college, granting its first associate degrees in 1924.