Texas Christian University called various Texas cities—including Waco—home for many years before settling permanently in Fort Worth. The university traces its origins to a small private school operated out of a brick church structure in Fort Worth, founded by Addison and Randolph Clark in 1869. Finding their students dazzled by the vice of a rapidly growing urban center, the brothers moved the college to the frontier town of Thorp Springs in 1873. It was there that the school received its first charter as AddRan Male and Female College in 1874. It was later chartered in 1889 as AddRan Christian College under the official control of the Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church.

Though the brothers left Fort Worth with the intention of leaving city life behind, trustees soon began to discuss the merits of moving the university back into an urban area. On September 4, 1895, James I. Moore presented a proposal from the Executive Committee of the Christian Church at Waco, offering the campus of former Waco Female College, fifteen acres of land north of downtown, and funds to construct a dormitory for male students in exchange for AddRan relocating to Waco by January 1, 1896.

On Christmas Day in 1895, a train carrying around one hundred members of AddRan Christian College rolled into Waco. Following a formal reception at First Baptist Church—attended by Waco politicians, university officials such as Baylor president Rufus C. Burleson, church representatives, and city clubs—AddRan students, faculty, and staff marched three miles to the former campus of Waco Female College near North Eighteenth Street.

A lone brick building standing atop a grassy hill greeted the university. Though unfinished, the structure offered an impressive start to what was intended to be a sprawling urban university. The spacious building included areas for dining, a library, the business college, science labs, a chapel, and parlors often used by literary societies and clubs. As promised, the Executive Committee of the Christian Church of Waco provided funding to finish the third floor which housed the male dormitory as well as faculty apartments. Although financial difficulties—largely brought on by debt the college acquired in Thorp Springs—challenged the university, several other buildings were added to the campus between 1900 and 1911, including a girls’ dormitory.

Classes began at Add-Ran in Waco on January 1, 1896, including mandatory coursework in ancient languages, English, mathematics, physical sciences, mental and moral sciences, and social history. A Bible department offered coursework for ministers in training. As the university expanded, the school added more classes and divisions, including music courses and a business department. In 1902, trustees voted to rename the college Texas Christian University (TCU), marking the school’s decided effort to transition from a small institution to one of the most influential universities in the South.

Student life consisted largely of participation in literary societies. In the late 1890s, a volunteer student band formed and many students became involved in the Young People’s Society of the Christian Endeavor, a national evangelical society. Students and faculty collaborated to publish a monthly newspaper, and in the 1897-1898 academic year the school mascot and colors were chosen and the first Horned Frog annual was published. As the college expanded in Waco, extracurricular activities such as athletics and military drill teams grew in popularity.

Tragedy struck in March of 1910 when a fire erupted in the main building. Though all students and faculty made it out of the building safely, the building was too far gone to be saved by the time Waco firefighters arrived. Neighboring homes opened their doors to displaced students, and churches throughout the city held voluntary collections to raise funds to aid the school. TCU completed the semester by holding classes on the lawn, in the girls’ home, and in the dining halls.

The fire proved to be an enormous financial obstacle for Texas Christian University. Only $29,000 of the $150,000 sustained in damages was insured. Seizing the opportunity, other Texas cities began to place bids to entice the school to move elsewhere. Although local businessmen offered funds to rebuild in Waco, TCU ultimately found Fort Worth’s promise of fifty acres of land, $200,000, and connection to municipal utilities and streetcar access too good to pass up. The school rebuilt in Fort Worth that same year.

Plans to open a new educational institution at the Waco site never materialized, and it was sold to a real estate developer in 1912. Today, a historical marker stands at the old location of the school, bearing witness to Texas Christian University’s years in Waco and its contribution to the city’s reputation as the “Athens on the Brazos.”

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A forerunner of Baylor University, Waco University served as one of the earliest and most influential institutions of higher learning following the founding of Waco Village in 1849.

When Waco incorporated in 1856, Baptists already held a significant presence in the small town. Seeking to establish a preparatory school for the provision of education for young Baptist men, First Baptist congregants banded together with the Trinity River Baptist Association in 1856 to create Trinity River Male High School, later called Trinity River Classical School. The small school held its first classes in 1857 in temporary quarters at First Baptist Church on Fourth Street. Hoping to expand the reach of the school, trustees purchased a 7 ½-acre tract of land south of the city plat between Fifth and Sixth Streets in 1859. With assistance from the local community, the school constructed two large brick buildings.

The year 1860 brought a series of new changes to the school, beginning with the formation of Waco Baptist Association, a voluntary group of nine Baptist churches organized to provide support to the local Baptist community. Taking control of the school from Trinity River Baptist Association, the Waco group renamed the institution Waco Classical School.

In 1861 a bitter dispute at Baylor University, still located in Independence, concerning teaching methodology and a coeducational dance brought former and future Baylor president Rufus Burleson and four new faculty members to Waco Classical School. Following the resignation of school head John C. West, trustees offered Burleson the presidency. Burleson adjusted the scope of the school and in September of that same year, it reopened as all-male Waco University.

Tuition at the Waco school ranged from ten to twenty dollars throughout the university’s years of operation, although the children of poor ministers and young men in training to become preachers often received their education for free. Budgetary concerns, a constant concern for the short-lived university, were underscored by large numbers of young men enrolling in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Enrollment increased and coursework expanded at the university in the years following the Civil War, aided by the addition of a female department in 1866. Although one of the first coeducational universities in the nation, classes remained segregated by gender.

The growing Waco school soon began to compete with Baylor University for students and the two universities, supported by separate Baptist associations, coexisted for several years. However, the growth of Waco, bolstered by the recent arrival of the railway, signaled the gradual decline of Baylor in Independence. When the general and state associations which supported the two universities consolidated to form The Baptist General Convention of Texas, it was decided to consolidate Waco University and Baylor University in Waco, utilizing Baylor’s name.

Waco University held its last classes in the spring of 1886, although Baylor retained many of the university’s policies, course offerings, and faculty for many years after the consolidation. As the Baylor campus expanded, the former Waco University structure was transitioned into a dormitory, and later phased out completely.

Today, Waco University’s contribution to educational life in the city is lived out through the operations of Baylor University.

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Organized in 1866, New Hope Baptist Church is one of the oldest African American churches in Waco. Noted throughout its history for its excellent church music programs, New Hope is still a vibrant center of worship for Waco’s black community.

The end of the Civil War brought new freedoms to African Americans residing in Waco. Though blacks had previously been allowed limited worship opportunities at First Baptist Church of Waco, several African American congregants desired to use their increased postwar liberty to found a church of their own. Assisted by Baylor University President Rufus Burleson and First Baptist Pastor S. G. O’Bryan, eighteen black members of First Baptist formed a Missionary Baptist church on June 10, 1866. They named the church New Hope, a title befitting the spirit of optimism that fueled its establishment.

From humble beginnings, New Hope Baptist grew to become one of the more well-known African American congregations in Waco. The church first met in an old foundry building on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Sixth Street, a dilapidated space the church rented for $2.00 a month. However, this space soon proved insufficient as New Hope’s numbers increased. In 1867, New Hope built its first church building, a humble box-shaped structure measuring thirty by forty feet, in partnership with a local Methodist church. Both groups shared the facility, holding services on alternating Sundays. That building did not last very long before it was torn down to make way for a school for African American youth from McLennan County. New Hope rented the school on Sunday mornings for services until 1873, when they were able to construct a modest wooden church structure at another location. In 1884, under the leadership of the church’s seventh pastor, a large two-story brick church was constructed for the still-growing church. This building served New Hope until the current church was built in 1923 at the corner of Sixth Street and Marlborough Avenue (now 915 North Sixth Street).

Over the years, New Hope Baptist benefited from the leadership of a dynamic pastorate. The church’s original pastor, Stephen Cobb, willingly served the church for eight years without a stipulated salary. Dr. J. Newton Jenkins, the pastor of New Hope from 1907 until 1950, is recognized as being the force that brought together a scattered and discouraged membership. In his first ninety days on the job, Jenkins was able to lead a fundraising effort that saw enough money raised to pay off all of the church’s debts. Jenkins’ successor, Dr. Marvin C. Griffin, was also a prolific pastor. Griffin pioneered a radio ministry and a citywide transportation system to the church on Sunday. He also strengthened the church’s ties with national, state, and local Baptist congregations.

New Hope Baptist was perhaps most well-known for its music programs. While the church had an informal choir as early as 1886, it wasn’t until 1895 that a structured music ministry was established under Dr. G.S. Conner and his wife Mattie. Thanks to the oversight of the Conners, by 1905 New Hope Baptist had a talented choir of forty trained voices to sing each Sunday. Soon thereafter in conjunction with students from Paul Quinn College, New Hope extended its music program to include a children’s choir and an orchestra. Dr. Conner presented at least one full-length operetta each year and cantatas at Christmas and Easter. Notable members of New Hope’s music ministry through the years include Jules Bledsoe, the grandson of Stephen Cobb and later an international opera star, and Vivienne Malone-Mayes, one of the first African Americans to receive an advanced degree in mathematics and the first African American professor at Baylor University.

From providing freed slaves with a sacred space of their own to empowering congregants through music, New Hope Baptist Church has worked for more than a century to lift black voices up in worship.

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