Although the idea of establishing a Christian school had been R.G. and Evelyn LeTourneau’s dream for years, in the end all it took was her observant eye and his quick wink of agreement to set into motion the founding of LeTourneau University.

It was while flying with her husband over Longview, Texas, to view a possible site for a new manufacturing plant that inventor and businessman R.G. LeTourneau’s wife, Evelyn, first noticed the future location of LeTourneau University. A few months after World War II had ended, R.G. wanted to build a new manufacturing plant for his earthmoving machines near a source of iron and steel, and the Lone Star Steel Company near Daingerfield, Texas, had caught his interest.

As Evelyn looked out the window of their plane, she asked Carl Estes, publisher of the Longview News Journal and one of the several Longview civic leaders accompanying them in their plane, about the facility she saw with dozens of barracks. Estes told Evelyn that she was viewing Harmon General Hospital, a deactivated military installation that was now vacant. When she commented that it looked like a good place for a school, Estes eagerly whirled around and asked, "If we could arrange with the people in Washington to get that hospital for you, would you put a school there?" Evelyn looked at her husband, who winked at her in agreement, and replied, "Sure!"

No strangers to being used of God, both R.G. and Evelyn LeTourneau were people of godly heritage and character. Robert Gilmore LeTourneau, better known as "R.G." was born in Richford, Vermont, November 30, 1888. The third son of Caleb and Elizabeth Lorimer Letourneau, who were of French Hugenot and Scottish ancestry, R.G. did well in school until he was allowed to skip the sixth grade and enter the seventh, where the studies were beyond him. His frustration turned his enthusiasm for learning into a strong dislike for school. At the same time, R.G.’s family moved from Duluth, Minnesota, to Portland, Oregon, where the six-foot-tall, fourteen-year-old young man announced to his father that he wanted to find a job rather than go to school because "I am a man growed." Although that ended the formal education of R.G.LeTourneau, it was only the beginning of his lifelong educational career where he learned by experience, by reading and by talking to others about subjects that intrigued him. At age sixteen, the prayers of R.G.’s parents were answered when he accepted Christ. Although he had been raised in Plymouth Brethren churches, he had never allowed the gospel to transform him personally.

At seventeen,R.G. moved to San Francisco, where he was introduced to the oxhydrogen welding torch, a tool that later became his favorite for repairing and constructing machines. In fact, he became so attached to the welding torch, that for a time he was known as "The One-Tool Mechanic." R.G. was one of the early industrialists who made welding a universally accepted process. In the aftermath of the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, R.G. –along with thousands of other people—was forced to seek a job elsewhere. After working various jobs as an iron molder, lead burner, brick layer, carpenter, gold miner, stump puller, irrigation ditch digger, farmer, and chopper of oak firewood, R.G. began to see the value of further education, and took a series of automobile mechanics correspondence courses. He finished these courses at age twenty-one and moved to Stockton, California, where he began working in automotive repair.