One of the most beautiful buildings on Baylor University’s campus is the Armstrong Browning Library & Museum. Sources such as Campus Grotto and Flavorwire have named the library to their lists of the fifty most beautiful libraries in the United States and in the world, respectively. The three-story Italian renaissance style building houses the world’s largest collection of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning material. Collected by Dr. Andrew Joseph Armstrong throughout his life, the artifacts have resided in the Armstrong Browning Library since its opening in 1951.

Born in 1873 in Louisville, Kentucky, A.J. Armstrong grew up wanting to be a college professor. He lost his father when he was fourteen, so when his mother fell ill a few years later, he delayed his college education to care for her. She died when he was twenty-six, and he began his studies at Wabash College. After he graduated in 1902, he accepted a position teaching English at East Texas Baptist Institute, where he met his future wife, fellow English teacher Mary Maxwell. Armstrong went on to earn his doctorate from University of Pennsylvania in 1908. That same year he accepted an interim teaching position at Baylor University. After three years teaching at Georgetown College, he returned to Baylor as the chair of the English department.

Dr. Armstrong possessed an interest in Robert Browning from an early age. Browning and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, were two of the greatest of the English Victorian poets. A master of dramatic monologue and psychological portraiture, Browning was a prolific poet, writing hundreds of poems and eight plays in verse.

Around 1905, Armstrong began to collect Browning's writings. His interest grew greatly upon his meeting the Brownings’ only son, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, called Pen, on a visit to Italy in 1909, and he resolved to collect every artifact he could. When Pen died in 1912 without a will, Sotheby’s auction house in London sold off the Browning estate. Armstrong was able to acquire a copy of the sale catalogue, including sale prices and purchasers, from a Sotheby staff member named E.H. Courville. From this starting point, Armstrong began to track down the Browning effects to bolster his fast-growing collection of Browning writings and relics.

Armstrong donated his collection of Browning materials to Baylor in 1918. Throughout his life, he continued to track down Browning artifacts, funding his passion with donations, gifts, and profits from events he hosted on campus. Many of these events were live readings, concerts, or dramatizations, featuring poets, musicians, actors, politicians, and scholars such as Robert Frost, Basil Rathbone, W.B. Yeats, Vachel Lindsay, William Taft, and Katharine Cornell. The university kept the Browning materials in Carroll Library, and designated a Browning Room to house the collection after the 1924 building renovation.

The collection grew quickly, and in 1943 Baylor President Pat Neff provided $100,000 to begin work on a new library to house the artifacts. Dr. Armstrong took upon himself the task of raising the remaining money. With the aid of his wife, Mary, he began an enormous fundraising campaign, writing to alumni, colleagues, politicians, and celebrities for whatever donation they could spare. Each letter he wrote was personal, and each gift was recognized with a thank you note. According to Dr. Armstrong, one person out of every four asked provided a donation. Several local and campus groups with which Dr. Armstrong was involved sponsored specific features of the building. For example, Dr. Armstrong’s Literature Survey class funded the front stairs, and the Tuesday Club of Brady, Texas and Mr. & Mrs. John Leddy-Jones of Dallas donated the Pippa statue on the front lawn.

Five years later, having obtained the $1.75 million dollars necessary for the construction of the building, the university held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Armstrong Browning Library. In 1950, about halfway through the building’s construction, a second ceremony was held for supporters to place keepsakes such as pictures, books, and papers in the library’s cornerstone along with a list of the 5,117 individuals that contributed to the Browning fund. Finally, in December of 1951, the library officially opened to the public. By now, Dr. Armstrong’s collection was the biggest collection of Browningiana in the world.

The library stands three floors high. Its majestic Italian Renaissance architecture serves as a stunning backdrop for the thousands of artifacts housed within its walls. The Armstrong Browning stained glass collection is the largest collection of secular stained glass in the world, featuring sixty-two stained glass windows depicting the lives and poetry of the Brownings. The ground floor of the library underwent renovation in 1995. Until then, the first floor held offices and classrooms for the English department, while the second and third displayed the various Browning materials. The ground floor now houses the Cox Reception Hall, the ABL Gift Gallery, the Mary Armstrong Seminar Room, the Lewis-Birkhead Lecture Hall, and climate-controlled book stacks. The second floor holds the Martin Entrance Foyer, the Hankamer Treasure Room, the John Leddy-Jones Research Hall, the McLean Foyer of Meditation, and the Cloister of the Clasped Hands, which holds a bronze cast of the hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barett Browning done by artist Harriet Hosmer. The stairwell joining the three floors holds a collection of paintings by Pen Browning. The third floor boasts the Austin Moore-Elizabeth Barrett Browning Salon and the Belew Scholars’ Room (originally Dr. Armstrong’s personal classroom) as well as a balcony overlooking the Foyer of Meditation. Spaces found outside the building include the Garden of Contentment, added in 2012, and an amphitheater.

The Armstrong Browning Library & Museum is a testament to how the tireless effort of one person can accomplish a lofty goal. The library continues to inspire students, scholars, poets, and tourists with its beauty and resources.

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Baylor University was the first coeducational university in the South, and only the second in the country. Even so, the education women received at Baylor for many years was fundamentally different than the men’s. Women stayed within the bounds of the more “feminine” degrees such as education or music, and access to on-campus organizations was severely limited. Female students were held to high standards and kept under close supervision by the Dean of Women. They had to adhere to a strict dress code (superintendents could remove undesirable clothing from student’s closets), attend Sunday school and church services every Sunday, sign out any time they left campus, observe a strict curfew, and keep good grades in order to be allowed to date, ride in a car, or leave campus.

As women’s rights activists made headway in the early twentieth century, coed institutions received more and more female applicants. Baylor was no exception. In the 1920s, Baylor received so many applications from women that they had to turn them away due to a lack of space. At the time, Georgia Burleson Hall and a few small annexes were the only women’s residential spaces on campus, and women who were not from Waco were not allowed to live off campus due to university administration’s desire to keep them protected and out of trouble. The male students, by comparison, were not subject to the same levels of supervision as the women and were trusted to live off campus. The ones that did live on campus were housed in then-brand-new Brooks Hall.

Despite being advertised as better than the accommodations at other universities, Burleson Hall was cramped, leaky, outdated, and only housed around 200 women, and the annexes could hold around 200 altogether. In the mid-1920s, the number of women enrolled at Baylor was around one thousand. In light of this space issue, President Samuel Palmer Brooks began planning the addition of a new women’s dormitory. The Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, having observed the piety and Christian attitudes of Baylor students, took an interest and pledged to help the university raise funds for this new building. They advertised in Waco newspapers to secure donations from the community, and sororities on campus aided them with fundraisers.

In 1928, a groundbreaking ceremony took place at the site of the new dormitory on the corner of Seventh and Speight. Baylor alumna, renowned author, and Columbia University professor Dorothy Scarborough addressed the spectators at this event. Scarborough emphasized the importance of remembering the exceptional women in Baylor’s history and made a commitment to be present at similar events in the future. Baylor administrators overseeing the project hoped that the groundbreaking might serve as a reminder to the community that the project was still underway, and hopefully inspire them to resume their donations, which had decreased significantly.

Woman’s Memorial Dormitory, named in honor of the Woman’s Missionary Union, was finished in 1930 and cost approximately $350,000. Securing funding for this project was no small feat, as at this time the country was suffering in the early days of the Great Depression. At this time, the building could house 245 women, and boasted a dining hall, a chapel, a study hall, and two banquet rooms. On October 15, 1930, the university suspended classes for two hours so that faculty, staff, and students could attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new dormitory. President Brooks, speaking at this ceremony, thanked the Woman’s Missionary Union for making the idea for the new dormitory into a reality, and further thanked all the women of Texas for their contributions to the project. Mrs. F. S. Davis, president of the Woman’s Missionary Union, also addressed the attendees, speaking of her hopes that the women of the dormitory would grow in their faith and be strong, Christian leaders in their community. “The fervent prayer,” she said, “that wells up from the heart of the Women’s Missionary Union today is that ‘our daughters may be as polished cornerstones after the similitude of a palace.’ For truly you, our daughters, are our glory and our crown.”

In 2005, Memorial and neighboring hall Alexander became home to the university’s Honors College Living and Learning Community, or HC-LLC (often called the Hick-Lick), with Memorial housing the women and Alexander housing the men. Four years later the university upgraded the community to the status of residential college. The Honors Residential College is known across campus for its tight-knit community, goofy traditions, and, in the words of one former Baylor professor,its “common love of uncommon things.” In 2023, the university renovated both Memorial and Alexander, updating facilities, rooms, and common spaces, as well as adding the new Carona Family Commons, a two-floor shared common area connecting the two buildings.

Woman’s Memorial Dormitory, now simply called Memorial Hall, has been a welcoming home away from home to Baylor women for almost 100 years. Memorial was instrumental in improving women’s access to education at Baylor when it was built, and the impact it and its founders had on the university is still visible.

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Among 1920s literary enthusiasts, Dorothy Scarborough was a familiar name, especially in her home state of Texas and in New York, where she taught at Columbia University. Initially well-known among Baylor University students for her popular English and journalism classes, she gained national prominence after the publication of several of her books—most notably the controversial book The Wind. A trailblazing female scholar, her work spanned from novels to folklore, from short stories to poetry. 

Emily Dorothy Scarborough, or “Dottie” as she was known to friends and family, was born on January 27, 1878 in Mount Carmel, Texas. Her parents were Mary Adelaide and John Bledsoe Scarborough, who was a Confederate veteran and prominent lawyer. The family moved to Sweetwater, TX in 1882, hoping the drier climate would help Mrs. Scarborough’s health, but five years later they moved to Waco so that the children could attend Baylor. Dorothy’s brother George attended law school at the University of Texas and became a successful playwright, and her sister Martha attended Baylor and Vassar and published three books. Like her siblings, writing was in Dorothy’s blood. 

Dorothy Scarborough received her bachelor’s in English in 1896 at age eighteen and her master’s in English in 1899, both from Baylor, and she returned to the university as a faculty member in 1905, teaching English. While teaching at Baylor, she spent her summers continuing her graduate studies at the University of Chicago, and she also taught a popular Sunday School class for college men at First Baptist Church Waco. In 1910 Scarborough took a year of leave to attend the University of Oxford, although they did not yet award degrees to women. After she returned, she taught the first journalism course available in the state of Texas. She moved to New York in 1916, where she finished her doctorate at Columbia University, and her dissertation, “The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction,” became a standard reference work on the topic among English scholars and students. She was hired immediately upon graduation at Columbia, where she would spend the rest of her career teaching creative writing focused on short stories and novels. Baylor awarded her an honorary doctorate in literature in 1923 in recognition of her accomplishments.

Scarborough’s first publication was a collection of poems entitled Fugitive Verses, which she published in 1912. Her first novel, In the Land of Cotton, which was published in 1923, examined the sharecropping system in Texas. Two years later she published three of her most famous works: The Unfair Sex, On the Trail of Negro Folksongs, and The Wind. The Unfair Sex was a partially autobiographical serialized novel based on her experiences at Oxford. She was disappointed with the profound sexism she encountered and the lack of provisions for women’s education at such a prestigious institution, which purported to value truth and learning above all else. On the Trail of Negro Folksongs was her first book-length venture as a folklorist. She had developed an interest in the topic growing up, and she conducted fieldwork and literary research to compile the folksongs found within this work.

The Wind is the most well-known of her writings, partially because of the controversy that it sparked. She first published it anonymously to garner publicity, but the novel’s negative portrayal of frontier life in West Texas ruffled more than a few feathers among Texans who accused the unknown author of slandering their state. The book is set during a severe drought in the 1880s in West Texas, and it portrays a female protagonist who is eventually driven mad by the wind and sand she encounters. The novel presents a stark contrast to the characterization of West Texas by most male authors at the time, who generally favored a more romanticized view of the West and of frontier life. After much speculation about the author, she finally revealed her secret and the controversy softened. The book was made into a silent movie starring the popular actress Lillian Gish in 1928, solidifying its impact on broader American culture. The book’s enduring legacy derives in part from its feminist overtones: Scarborough not only challenged a romanticized characterization of the American West by narrating a woman’s perspective of frontier life, she critiqued the scarcity of options for women outside of marriage and called attention to the sexual violence that many women silently endured. 

Scarborough published several more novels, including Impatient Griselda, Can’t Get a Redbird, and The Stretch-Berry Smile, all set in the South, but none surpassed her 1925 publications in popularity. She began compiling another folksong collection, called A Song Catcher in Southern Mountains, which contained Appalachian folksongs, but she died of a heart attack in her sleep on November 7, 1935. The book was published posthumously in 1937. 

Dorothy Scarborough’s success as both professor and author inspired many young people to imitate her. Numerous students, particularly female students, looked to her as their inspiration to pursue writing or to pursue a doctorate at a time when very few women did so. Her writing was not without fault; it reflected a nostalgia for the rural South that at times perpetuated racial stereotypes, but this nostalgia was frequently tempered by her questioning of gender norms surrounding women’s education and marriage. Scarborough’s legacy still lingers today in the state of Texas, and particularly at Baylor: a legacy as teacher, scholar, and writer.

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One of the most popular places to visit on Baylor University’s campus is the Bill and Eva Williams Bear Habitat, home to Baylor’s live bear mascot. The first habitat was built in 1945, but through the years the desire to increase the quality of life for the bears drove the university to rebuild the habitat again and again, until it became the haven it is today.

Baylor has had a live bear mascot since 1917. The first live bear mascot, Ted, often called “Bruin,” belonged to a nearby Camp MacArthur soldier, who let students parade the bear across the football field during a game and then left the bear to the students when he was deployed overseas. Ted served as Baylor’s mascot until the early 1920s. As there was no habitat at this time, Ted was kept at the Texas Cotton Palace’s small zoo. The bears following Ted would sometimes live off campus but were for the most part kept on university grounds, usually in a pen along Waco Creek. In 1932, Baylor student Bill Boyd acquired a bear named Joe College from the Cotton Palace, which was closing. Joe had been a show bear, and his friendliness and personality quickly made him a favorite of Baylor students. Boyd kept the bear in his backyard until Joe grew to weigh 500 pounds and could no longer be safely housed at his residence. At this point, the Baylor University Chamber of Commerce volunteered to build him a home on campus. Joe College was retired in 1940, and Chamber officially assumed care of his successor, Little Joe.

In 1945, Chamber raised the funds and built Baylor’s first real bear habitat. Located (as it is today) on the banks of Waco Creek, the habitat was known as the “Bear Pit.” It featured a swimming pool and space for the bears to climb or walk around, surrounded by a barrier originally made of iron bed headboards. The Bear Pit underwent renovations in 1949, 1953, and 1969. Chamber also added a trailer in 1953 which transported the bears to and from football games, when previously the bears had been transported in a car or train. The bears frequently tested the strength and security of the Bear Pit with their repeated and often successful escape attempts. The Pit was the home of Baylor’s bears until 1977. At this point, the university decided to demolish it and build the Steve Hudson Memorial Bear Plaza in its place. The Steve Hudson Memorial Bear Plaza was built into the sloping bank of Waco Creek, with an open area where the bears could exercise at creek level and pens and viewing decks at ground level. It was three times the size of its predecessor and included a waterfall and AstroTurf. The Plaza held a Class-C zoo license from the United States Department of Agriculture and was approved by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to hold up to three bears.

In 1999, Chamber began pushing the university to update the habitat again, and in 2003 the university finally began the process. Chamber members worked with administrators from Cameron Park Zoo to develop the plans for the bears’ new home. The new habitat opened in 2005, and university administration named it the Bill and Eva Williams Bear Habitat Complex after the project’s lead donors. This complex, which still houses the university mascots, is Baylor’s most sophisticated habitat yet. The environment resembles the bears’ natural environment and includes many new features designed for the enrichment and care of the bears. Another major change to the enclosure was the elevation, as the whole complex was raised to ground level. Viewing areas encircle about half of the outside border, allowing visitors to easily observe the bears’ behavior, and placards provide information about both the history of Baylor’s bears and about black bears in general.

The Bill and Eva Williams Bear Habitat is the safest place on campus and could withstand winds from a category five hurricane, according to the Robert Reid Director of the Baylor Chamber of Commerce, Dakota Farquhar-Caddell. The habitat received accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) in 2021. It is the only university mascot facility to achieve this designation and one of only two AZA accredited zoos on a college campus. Finally, the university added a Community Education Pavilion to the complex in 2022, promoting community engagement and education about the bears.

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Urban renewal programs swept across the United States in the mid-twentieth century. Funded by the federal government, cities throughout the country sought to improve local architecture and expand residential areas by purchasing and decimating pre-existing neighborhoods, a process often referred to as “slum clearance.” The City of Waco conducted the largest urban renewal program in the state of Texas. Intending to redesign and improve city infrastructure, local government officials formed the Waco Urban Renewal Agency. Launched in 1957, the first project was a partnership with Baylor University and focused on the renewal of land adjacent to the school’s campus. 

In the summer of 1958, Waco and Baylor declared the homes, businesses, churches, and other buildings near the Brazos River as “slums” in need of clearance. City planner E. H. Lovelace of Harland Bartholomew & Associates, an urban planning firm, affirmed Waco’s first project location as ideal for urban renewal. The city held a vote in June for the Baylor University Project, which received a resounding vote of approval—2,133 yeas to 293 nays. Notably, the City of Waco changed voting requirements on voting day, declaring only property owners as eligible voters. Seventy percent of residents in the area deemed a slum rented their homes.

After the election, Waco and Baylor planned to construct a park, residential housing, highways, and expand Baylor’s campus in the area. Most of the homes within the approved urban renewal area belonged to Black Wacoans. Residents appeared before the city council on October 13, 1958, to protest the confiscation of their homes. The expansion of Baylor University, which still refused Black students’ entry, remained central to their objections. Eighty property owners from the area signed a petition to maintain ownership of their homes.

Waco and Baylor ignored residential complaints and moved forward with urban renewal. In January 1959, they received federal approval of $67,474 for the 85-acre project. Once the Texas Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of federal aid for local urban renewal projects, Waco and Baylor established the official bounds of their first urban renewal project: the area confined by Fourth and First Streets and Jones and Leila Avenues. Waco’s urban renewal committee members—including real estate agent Hank L. Corwin, former mayor Truett Smith, Baylor Trustee Hilton E. Howell, and Baylor Executive Vice President Abner McCall—cheered federal and state approval, declaring the decision a victory for Waco and Baylor.

The city and university planned to remove 187 homes from the area, resulting in the relocation of 209 families and 50 individuals, the majority of whom were people of color. Residents and advocates for those within the bounds of Waco’s first urban renewal project gathered to protest once more on November 24, 1959.

Overflowing into the corridors, hundreds of urban renewal protestors blocked the entrance of city hall. Church members objected to the movement of their congregational spaces. Property owners resisted the seizure of their homes. Fred Finch, a prominent NAACP lawyer, objected to the area’s classification as a “slum” and noted that many residents would never be able to purchase another home. Resident after resident objected to their relocation. Waco Reverend J. L. Carter of 1621 South Third Street also rose to protest. If removed, he declared that he would not be able to buy another home or send his four daughters to college, especially since they could not attend segregated Baylor University. “In the event that this plan should pass and all the people are moved out, I believe you will cause a number of crimes,” Carter stated, “and I am a minister.”

Despite extraordinary opposition, Waco and Baylor began to relocate residents and knock down structures in January 1960. By 1963, the Waco Urban Renewal Agency had removed all residents from the Baylor University Project area and demolished all 272 structures within its bounds.

Waco and Baylor completed the Baylor University Project, or Baylor 1A, in July 1964, the first urban renewal project completed in the state of Texas, and soon completed another project, Riverside 1 Baylor. With federal funds, Waco purchased land from local residents, often at lower rates than market value, and sold the property to the private university. Baylor eventually bought 163 acres and constructed new classroom buildings, dormitories, and faculty housing. The university’s campus, which grew by fifty acres during this time, remains on urban renewal land today.

Several additional urban renewal projects ran in Waco throughout the mid- to late twentieth century. In 1960, they began the next initiative in Calle Dos near St. Francis Catholic Church and Sandtown. Over the next ten years, Waco purchased and renewed over 2,100 acres of land. By the late 1970s, Waco had completed ten urban renewal projects, more than any other city in Texas, permanently shifting the structure of the city and the residents within its bounds.

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Without the construction of Waco Hall, Baylor University might reside in Dallas, Texas. In the early 1900s, some Baylor representatives pushed for the university to relocate and had already placed parts of the institution in Dallas, including the newly established medical school. Resisting such a transition, Wacoans banded together to keep the university in the city. Under the auspices of the Waco-Baylor Campaign, community and university leaders introduced a plan titled “Greater Baylor University” in May 1928. Wacoans pledged to raise $350,000 in support of the university, with the agreement that no additional gifts would be required over the next three years. Texas Baptists committed to matching Waco’s donations. Local leaders believed these efforts to be favorable for both Waco and Baylor. Committing to an investment in the expansion of the university meant potential growth and flourishing in Waco.

Early on, city and university leaders decided that funds would support the construction of a new building on Baylor’s campus. Seeking to visually represent the connections between Waco and Baylor, leaders of the Waco-Baylor Campaign decided to name the new building Waco Hall. Embodying the relationship between the local community and the university, Waco Hall would serve as a performance and gathering space for Wacoans and Baylor students, faculty, and staff. Eager citizens quickly raised the recommended $350,000, and Wacoans, showing broad support for Waco Hall, went above the original amount, donating a total of $416,000 by June 1928.

Once the campaign met fundraising goals, trustees of Baylor University contemplated the building’s potential location. They decided on Seventh Street and Speight Avenue and completed plans for construction by March 13, 1929. Architects Lang and Mitchell of Dallas finalized structural decisions soon after, and on June 25, 1929, Baylor officials poured Atlas Portland Cement into the foundation. Soon after, O. K. Johnson Construction of Waco began to lay the foundation for the 200-by-200-foot building and finished the project in early 1930. On May twenty-seventh of that year, Baylor University held a dedication ceremony for the newly completed Waco Hall.

From the start of the project, city and Baylor leaders envisioned a structure that would serve as an auditorium for both the community and university. Though university leaders initially expected to only host graduation ceremonies in Waco Hall, the building expanded as a venue for Waco Symphony Orchestra concerts and as the location for Baylor’s School of Music and Department of Art.

At the time of its opening, Waco Hall’s 41,985 square feet contained nine classrooms, six offices, and an auditorium with a capacity of 2,400. The building also featured the Brooks Memorial Organ and a recital hall. Over time, Waco Hall expanded and experienced multiple renovation efforts. In 1957, university leaders added a west annex named Roxy Grove Hall in honor of the previous dean of the School of Music. The facility expanded and improved once more in 1965, when leaders constructed an east annex and installed new auditorium seats. In 1978, Baylor funded another renovation project, adding entry and exit ramps, first-floor restrooms, a custom lighting panel, and additional parking. The community and university funded the placement of acoustic panels in 1997, which debuted on October sixteenth at a Waco Symphony Orchestra concert.

Home to the Waco Symphony Orchestra since 1965, scores of other well-known artists and speakers have performed in front of local audiences at Waco Hall. Hollywood icons Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy Lamour, and Claude Rains graced the stage. Opera stars Marian Anderson and Waco’s own Jules Bledsoe dazzled audiences in 1939, and two years later, Bob Hope presented his comedic variety act to Waco audiences. In 1951, Billy Graham preached at Waco Hall, becoming an honorary Noze Brother during his campus visit. Prominent political figures also spoke in Waco Hall, including Presidents Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, and Lyndon B. Johnson, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, activist Ralph Nader, and Mark Felt, the notorious “Deep Throat” in the Watergate scandal. Renowned musical acts Bachman-Turner Overdrive, John Denver, Amy Grant, and Texas native Waylon Jennings performed there, too.

Waco Hall continues to host community-wide and university events. As at its beginning, the hall hosts University Chapel for students across Baylor’s campus. The auditorium also remains the location for important all-university events, such as Freshman Mass Meeting, Founders Day, All University Sing, Pigskin Revue, and other community and university pageants and ceremonies.

The stage, orchestra pit, and now 2,200-person auditorium in Waco Hall continue to provide a performance and gathering space for the community and university. More than just a building, Waco Hall exemplifies the relationship between Baylor University and the City of Waco—one that spans back before 1930 and continues into the present.

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In July 1974, Leon Jaworski argued to the Supreme Court that not even the president of the United States was above the law. As the special prosecutor in the Watergate proceedings, Jaworski sought tape recordings made by President Nixon. The president claimed executive privilege, but the court sided unanimously with Jaworski, and the information on the tapes led to Nixon’s resignation in August. Leon Jaworski was a man whose experience taught him to both revel in the contest of public debate and believe in the integrity of the law.

Born Leonidas Jaworski on September 19, 1905, he was the third son, and first American-born child, of Central European immigrants newly arrived to Waco. His parents, Joseph and Mira Jaworski, immigrated to the United States in 1903 and settled into a life of pastoral ministry in the Evangelical Church. Eventually, Mira Jaworski’s ill health compelled her husband to seek a country pastorate, so the family moved from Waco to Geronimo, Texas, in 1907. However, she died only two years later. Both Leon’s parents were well educated, and Rev. Jaworski supplemented his children’s schooling by tutoring them. It was a desire to provide greater educational opportunities for his children that motivated Rev. Jaworski to return to Waco in 1914.

After finishing at Central Grammar School, Leon started at Waco High where he displayed the educational acumen to complete four years of study in three. An avid baseball lover, Jaworski’s small stature prevented him from competing in the game in high school, so the teenager joined the debate team. The experience sealed Jaworski’s love for verbal sparring, and he abandoned his earlier intention to join his older brother Hannibal in the practice of medicine to pursue law instead.

As a sixteen-year-old, Jaworski started college at Baylor. He completed one year of coursework before continuing his studies at the newly reopened law school. Jaworski graduated in 1925 with an LLB, the professional degree necessary at the time for practicing law. At nineteen, he became the youngest person admitted to the Texas Bar. To further cultivate his legal skills, Jaworski enrolled in George Washington University’s yearlong Master of Laws (LLM) program. His education now complete, Jaworski returned to Waco to practice law.

Jaworski cut his legal teeth in Prohibition-era Waco where the Ku Klux Klan still made its presence felt. He practiced alongside Tom Scott and Joe McNamara, and their firm handed several cases involving illegal spirits. Jaworski nevertheless tested the limits of community goodwill when he defended an African American man, Jordan Scott, charged with the 1928 murder of a white couple. He faced backlash from Wacoans for taking the case and believing the man was entitled to a strong defense. Though he lost, its publicity brought new professional opportunities Jaworski’s way. In 1930, he left Waco to practice with the A. D. Dyess firm in Houston where he stayed for a year before joining another Houston firm that would eventually bear his name: Fulbright and Jaworski.

With his colleagues—Fulbright, Crooker, Freeman, and Bates—Jaworski practiced corporate law, developing clients in the oil and gas industry. Over his five decades with the multinational firm, he handled clients such as Exxon and Shell. When World War II erupted, Jaworski joined the US Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps where he took part in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, but declined participation in the Nuremburg trials. However, Jaworski was not an infallible attorney. One of his JAG convictions was later overturned, and his corporate ties and ambition left him open to accusations of conflicts of interest and ethics violations. Whispers of such conduct followed Jaworski through the most notable cases of his career.

Jaworski’s status as a litigator garnered the attention of politicians of both parties in Washington. In 1960, Jaworski argued fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson’s case to both campaign for his Senate seat and as John F. Kennedy’s running mate. A few years later, Attorney General Robert Kennedy tasked Jaworski with the litigation against Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett for defying a federal order to integrate the University of Mississippi. Jaworski achieved his greatest acclaim as the Watergate special prosecutor in 1974, and three years later he returned to Washington as the special counsel for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct charged with handling “Koreagate.” The matter involved Korean lobbyists’ attempts to gain influence over members of Congress. With that case, the most public portion of Jaworski’s career came to a close.

Jaworski died of a heart attack at his ranch outside Wimberley, Texas, on December 9, 1982. His legacy in the legal profession included not only his most public cases, but also his service as president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the State Bar of Texas, and the American Bar Association. Leon Jaworski debated his way from Waco to the top of the legal profession where he participated in one of the most significant legal cases of the twentieth century.

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Despite many obstacles, Robert Gilbert offered “no excuses” when he found himself at the forefront of enacting racial integration and advancing civil rights in Waco. His efforts left an indelible mark on the city and Baylor University.

He was born on December 27, 1941, the fourth child of the Rev. B. F. Gilbert and his wife, Fannie Mae. The Gilbert household prized faith in God, education, and community service. Attending Waco’s segregated schools, Gilbert wanted to be a lawyer advancing the rights of African Americans. After graduating from A. J. Moore High School in 1960, he enrolled at Paul Quinn College. Following several years of study at Paul Quinn, Gilbert and his teachers realized a future legal career required he obtain a degree from Baylor University, which had only recently—in November 1963—voted to integrate.

Administrative and legal decisions do not generate immediate cultural change, a reality that confronted Gilbert as he began his studies at Baylor in summer 1965. The alienation and animosity he felt as a child growing up near the campus continued to form a large part of his experience as a student. He experienced isolation from his classmates, and while some faculty treated him with dignity, others proved overtly racist. Gilbert majored in history, which he enjoyed, but he soon acknowledged that a legal career was increasingly unlikely. For most of his adolescence, Gilbert resisted pastoral ministry, but soon the call to preach became too acute to ignore. In addition, doctors advised him that his poor health could not handle the stresses of practicing law.

Since the age of fourteen, Gilbert suffered from various types of arthritis that left him in constant pain and with impaired mobility. In his teens, it proved manageable with only an occasional flare-up. However, in July 1963, his condition deteriorated rapidly. Gilbert recovered and returned to college, though he now required a cane for support. Later on, joint deterioration led to numerous surgeries and eventually put him in a wheelchair. The visible specter of his arthritis plagued Gilbert for his entire life, but it also became the source of his testimony and vocation. Grappling with his arthritis proved God’s way of grabbing hold of Gilbert, calling him to a life of ministry and teaching, as well as instilling in him the faith and endurance required to overcome all impediments that lay ahead.

Gilbert’s faith-filled perseverance equipped him to break barriers and gave him an unquenchable thirst for justice. On June 2, 1967, Robert Gilbert became the first African American student to graduate from Baylor. By virtue of alphabetical order, Gilbert preceded his classmate Barbara Walker, who that day became Baylor’s first female African American graduate. After his graduation, Gilbert continued pioneering as the first black teacher at the all-white Tennyson Middle School. Another first included his summer role as assistant director of Baylor’s Upward Bound program to help train low-income students for college. Gilbert carried on all this work while also actively engaging in pastoral ministry.

To enrich his ministry, Gilbert returned to Baylor in 1970 to pursue a graduate degree in religion. However, another devastating turn in his health in 1971 left him unable to finish his studies, but not to pastor. He succeeded his father into the pulpits of Baptist churches in Bremond and Chilton, before in 1978, beginning a more than decade-long ministry at Waco’s Carver Park Missionary Baptist Church. Under his leadership, the congregation grew exponentially. Gilbert’s dynamic sermons and visible witness attracted people to him and to the gospel. His life held the power to convict and inspire, not only the people in his congregations, but all Wacoans as well.

The 1970s saw Gilbert take up his trailblazing mantel and use his status in the community to advocate for civil rights. Upset about the glacial pace of integration in Waco schools after the 1954 Brown decision, Gilbert served as the plaintiff in the NAACP case against the Waco Independent School District. His suit, combined with a similar case from Waco’s Hispanic community, became the 1973 Arvizu v. Waco ISD decision mandating the integration of several racially identifiable schools in Waco. In 1976, he was elected the first black member of Waco’s school board. Outside of education, Gilbert helmed the Association for Selective Career Opportunities that aimed to advance the hiring of minorities in fields where they were underrepresented. His experiences at the forefront of integration made him a catalyst for creating opportunities for other African Americans in Waco.

When he died on November 11, 1992, Robert Gilbert left a rich legacy of ministry and activism. In the last years of his life, through pain and numerous health struggles, he maintained his pastoral ministry, while also advocating for Waco and Baylor to diversify hiring. Today Gilbert’s communities honor his impact. For example, the Waco NAACP awards scholarships to high school graduates named for the Gilbert family. Captured by his 1988 autobiography title, No Excuses Accepted, Gilbert believed everyone was capable of achieving their goals, no matter the impediments. Grounded in faith and in pursuit of justice, he testified to that belief with his life, calling others to do the same.

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On a hot Atlanta evening in July 1988, Ann Richards emerged from deep in the heart of Texas to address the Democratic National Convention as the keynote speaker. The Texas treasurer’s rousing and pointed speech—sprinkled with her characteristic one-liners—brought her national attention. It served as a turning point in her political career. Only three years later, Richards stood at another podium, this time in Austin, taking her oath of office as the forty-fifth governor of Texas.

Born Dorothy Ann Willis on September 1, 1933, in Lacy Lakeview, Richards developed an interest in civic engagement and public speaking from a young age. As a student at Waco High School, where she graduated in 1950, Richards actively participated in the debate team and in the Girls State (and Nation) program where she practiced politics in a mock government. That fall, she entered Baylor University on a debate scholarship. While at Baylor, she married fellow Wacoan David Richards and continued to hone her oratory skills. She and David graduated in 1954.

Moving to Austin expanded the young couple’s involvement in politics. While her husband studied law, Richards earned a teaching certificate from the University of Texas and worked as a social studies teacher at Fulmore Junior High School. In the mid-1950s, they also canvased for progressive candidates like Ralph Yarborough and honed ideas amongst the Young Democrats. After her husband took a job practicing labor law in Dallas in 1957, Richards kept house, raised their four children, and maintained her involvement in politics. During the 1970s, now back in Austin, the Richards’ home served as a hub for progressive Texas politics and the place where Ann organized political campaigns for female candidates like Sarah Weddington. Still, she never intended to run for office herself.

However, after David declined running for Travis County Commissioner, their friends urged Ann to consider. Relying on the networks and skills she spent years cultivating, she routed the longtime incumbent and took office in 1976. She served another term as a county commissioner before her 1980 election as Texas State Treasurer. During her two terms at that post, Richards streamlined Texas’ financial system. Her political acumen, oratory skill, and straightforwardness garnered the notice of the Democratic National Committee who invited her to give the keynote speech at the 1988 convention. Richards appeared on the rise.

But her political ascendency obscured a rapidly disintegrating personal life. For decades, alcohol lubricated the social and political circles in which Richards ran. Her heavy drinking turned her caustic wit mean and, while appearing to make her the life of the party, also endangered herself and others. In 1980, family and friends staged an intervention. Within the day she traveled to an out-of-state rehab facility. While improving many aspects of her life, Richards’ newfound sobriety could not repair the longstanding fissures within her marriage. She and David separated by the end of the year, divorcing in 1984. Whether astute recognition or self-fulfilling prophecy, Richards’ initial fears about the negative affect of her political career on her marriage came to pass. She spoke with candor about both experiences for the remainder of her political life.

With her rousing performance on the Atlanta dais in 1988, Richards opened a new avenue for herself. The political capital she garnered enabled her to mount a successful campaign for governor of Texas. While in office, Richards diversified holders of government appointments so they more accurately reflected the state’s demographics. Controversially, she banned the concealed carrying of handguns and limited access to assault weapons. Fiscal, education, and prison reform constituted significant portions of her agenda. Though popular, Richards lost in her 1994 reelection bid to George W. Bush.

After she left office, Richards worked as a political consultant, continuing to campaign for liberal causes and candidates. She also served as visiting professor at UT–Austin and Brandeis University. Richards died on September 13, 2006, after a brief battle with esophageal cancer. The spirited debater from Waco made her mark on Texas politics. Her election as state treasurer in 1980 marked the first time in half a century that a woman held a state-level position. To date, she remains the last Democratic governor of Texas and the first duly elected woman to hold the office.

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When football fans hear “Battle of the Brazos,” they think of an old rivalry between Baylor and Texas A&M (formerly The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas), two schools situated on the Brazos River. Before the days of the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conferences, there was the Southwest Conference (SWC), where Baylor and Texas A&M vied for the title of SWC champions for decades until the conference was disbanded in 1996. But there were a few years when the schools did not compete, and it was because of a tragedy that has been swathed in myth and bias. A young A&M cadet lost his life as a result of a heated brawl between the two sides during halftime of the game on October 30, 1926.

Baylor and A&M had developed quite the rivalry in the years since their first face-off in 1899. It was the big public college versus the small private college, with the added competition for Baylor women’s hearts, as A&M was still an all-male institution. The cadets often courted the Baylor gals, invoking the ire of the Baylor men ready to come to their defense. The football field became the perfect setting to release this frustration and to try to come out on top for all the girls, alumni, and other fans to see. To add to the stakes, during the 1920s the Baylor-A&M game was often the biggest of the season, being played in the famous ten-thousand-seat Cotton Palace stadium (pinned on map below) and often also serving as Baylor’s homecoming game. A&M would bring its entire cadet corps and parade through the streets of Waco as well. The festivities surrounding the game were highly anticipated, and it was always a full house.

With such revelry comes emotion and team spirit, and these can sometimes get out of hand. In fact, trouble had been brewing at this football showdown in the years leading up to the fateful game in 1926. In 1922, a riot broke out after the game and was broken up by firehoses. In 1924, another riot erupted after the Aggies lost, and both male and female students were allegedly assaulted until the Waco police dispelled the violence. When the 1926 game rolled around, Baylor had law enforcement ready for any postgame shenanigans, but to everyone’s surprise, the violence came long before the game ended.

It all started with what was thought to be some low-stakes mockery. Normally, the A&M cadets would perform at halftime and show off their military calisthenics. This year, the entire corps did not come to the game, so with only four hundred cadets in attendance, they decided not to perform. But Baylor took it upon themselves to make sure the crowd still got a cadet calisthenics show. Dressed as fake cadets, some Baylor men took to the field and made fun of the military routine of their rivals. This caused blood to boil among the Aggie attendees. Then, to make matters worse, a Ford vehicle full of Baylor women came out onto the field touting signs with previous Baylor football scores on them. This particularly irked the Aggies because of a previous game between Baylor and A&M when a Ford car had nearly collided with some Aggie students during the halftime show. Just the sight of a car was too much for a few to handle.

Two cadets, later identified as W. L. Lee and G. L. Hart, hopped onto the field and sprinted toward the moving vehicle. Lee dove into the car window and grabbed the steering wheel, jostling the car and causing one of the women to fall off the back. The Baylor men then took to the field to protect their women, and mayhem ensued. The young men swung not only fists, but also clubs and parts of the wooden chairs from the stands. It was in this chaos that cadet Charles Milo Sessums was struck by a chair on the left side of his head near midfield, falling flat to the ground. Cadet William Moers Jr. carried him to the first aid station while the band quelled the riot by playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Lead Aggie yell leader J.D. Langford apologized to the crowd and made his men swear to stay in their seats thirty minutes after the game ended to avoid further fracas. Things seemed to have settled, and the game continued to its completion, with Baylor winning 20-9.

But soon no one remembered the score. After being checked out at the first aid station, Charles Sessums was taken to Providence Sanitarium. The doctors detected a skull fracture, but medicine had little to offer Charles. His doctors assumed that with rest he would make a full recovery, but sadly he passed away at nine o’clock the next morning due to a blood clot that formed because of the fracture. His parents traveled from Dallas to collect their son’s body, and a funeral was held in their home on November 2, 1926.

Despite an investigation by Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, the man who struck the fatal blow was never found. Though detective Ila Floyd Benedict narrowed it down to a handful of suspects, he never called for an arrest. In fact, some of the interviews Benedict conducted led him to suspect a cover-up by the town mayor, Dr. H. F. Connally. Relations between the two schools soured in the wake of these events, especially after the Baylor and A&M presidents released a joint statement sharing the blame for the incident. Both student bodies vehemently protested, blamed the other, and called for a cessation of athletic competition between the two schools. Baylor and A&M would not compete in any capacity for five years after this tragic incident.

Baylor and A&M played for the last time in 2011, and by that time most people did not even know about the riot that killed Charles Sessums. But it remains an important event in the history of the university and the town of Waco. Author T. G. Webb captured the full story and outlined the suspects in his book: Battle of the Brazos: A Texas Football Rivalry, a Riot, and a Murder.

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The “irreverent gadflies.” When Baylor University students think about the NoZe Brothers today, they picture fellow students performing shenanigans around campus while wearing big plastic noses, wild wigs, and eclectic outfits. They think of The Rope, a satirical newspaper filled with nonsensical rhyming distributed around campus. But while shenanigans and satire have always been at the heart of the bizarre ways of the organization, working incognito has not.

The NoZe brothers began in 1924 as a counter organization to the very serious Baylor Chamber of Commerce, who they viewed as a “snooty bunch.” Officially the first social club on campus, the organization quickly grew in number and acclaim. The name NoZe Brothers, originally spelled Nose, originated from the first president’s especially large nose. This president, Leonard “LongNoZe” Shoaf, is still a figurehead, saint, and guiding light of the unruly organization. Another founder, John Moilliet, started the tradition of naming all members something to do with “noZe” and kicking off the trend of NoZeprose, the zany, rhyming lingo of the group. The goal from the beginning was quite simple: to find any and every weakness in or upon the campus environment and display it in a satirical manner. The subject matter over the years has ranged from Baylor administration to fundamentalist Christianity.

Absurdity indeed reigns when the Brotherhood is involved. In the 1960s, the Brotherhood painted an entire bridge over the Brazos in their signature pink and blue colors. In the 1970s, a group of female students decided to sell cookies to benefit the prisoners in North Vietnam. The Brothers followed their lead and sold “commode-roasted wieners” for the disabled grandmothers of World War I. Around the same time some Brothers also decided to direct traffic and issue driving citations, but the citations were of course nonsense. On that day students were charged with “driving a blue car down a black street on a green day,” parking on holy grounds, having the wrong color car, having three left tires, having an ugly car, or parking in a “constipated” area. Students were fined anything from 5,327 ½ cents to 100 tuna to a partridge in a pear tree. The money from the tickets was for an equally bizarre cause: placing AstroTurf in Baylor’s Russell Gymnasium. The stranger the task, the more fun the Brothers had.

NoZemen are also known for their event appearances, especially with homecoming floats. For the first few years, the Brothers used the Elm Mott fire truck as their float, but they soon branched out. One year, the float consisted of a sophisticated outhouse that members guarded with water pistols. Another year they wheeled a large, paper-mache, headless John the Baptist through campus. More recently, they fastened a rug to the bumper of an old truck and proceeded to “sweep under the rug” for the entire length of the parade route as a comment on recent scandals in Baylor athletics. Other stunts are a bit more innocuous, like satirizing the Wall of Jericho by parading around the annual Christmas tree in Burleson Quad, blowing horns, and declaring that the tree will soon fall. They have also been known to interrupt various events in Waco Hall, such as Pigskin and chapel, in order to distribute copies of The Rope. More regularly, they are known to paint the noses of statues on campus a bright pink color.

The NoZe brothers generally operate as a democratic organization, with certain executive positions that have changed over the years. Currently, the organization is headed by the “Lorde Mayor,” with the “Shekel Keeper” in charge of funds and advertisements, and a “Cunning Linguist” in charge of publications and correspondence. The rest of the senior members sit upon the “Bored of Graft,” overlooking various activities. All other members are known as “NoZemen,” and new members as “Neophytes.” Graduated members are “exiles,” anyone lucky enough to date a member is a “fortunate,” and nonmembers are “infidels.”

Yet the line between satire and sacrilege can be quite thin, especially for Baylor administration. The first major incident came in 1965 when the Brotherhood was expelled from campus for publishing curse words in The Rope. This incident came on the coattails of the Brothers painting the Seventh Street Bridge pink and blue and scrawling “Satch” (meaning good or affirmative) and “Gob” (meaning negative) across the beams. Dean of Students W. C. Perry saw to it that this was their last prank and used The Rope publication to take them down. Through the mediation of Brother LongNoZe, who happened to live and work in Waco at the time, the Brotherhood was able to return to campus in 1967, but with a new way of doing things.

The NoZe brothers did not want to change their ways to accommodate Baylor, so they decided to go underground instead. Costumes and fake noses became essential as they sought to hide their identities from administration and students alike. In fact, the Book of Holy Law, written to govern the Brotherhood, then articulated two absolute rules: guard identity and maintain the strictest secrecy regarding brotherhood activities. But this did not stop the storm of controversy surrounding the NoZemen. In 1975 they were once again almost kicked off campus for showing up at Pigskin after being expressly banned and presenting a NoZeman dressed in a foil bikini as their homecoming queen candidate. Though they managed to remain on campus this time, they soon met their demise in 1978 when they printed a fake version of the student newspaper The Lariat declaring that homecoming had been canceled. After returning to campus a year later, the organization was kicked off at least one other time in 1999 for a racially insensitive article in The Rope.

The NoZe brothers’ history is dotted with hilarity, intrigue, and trouble, but they remain a beloved part of Baylor student life. In all their endeavors, they hope to make Baylor a better place, but to have fun while they do it.

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For over 100 years, Vitek's Grocery and, now, BBQ restaurant, has remained a cherished business in the Waco area, providing residents with quality meats and a community gathering place.

The story of Vitek's BBQ began in 1915, when butcher William Martin Vitek, the son of Czechoslovakian immigrants, opened a grocery store and meat market in Granger, Texas. From the very outset, Vitek was always willing to accommodate special requests and deliveries, establishing a customer-first ethos that would define the Vitek family business for the next century. Shortly after opening the new business, William and his wife, Hattie, moved sixty miles north to Waco, eventually setting up shop at 1715 Speight Avenue. The fledgling venture changed locations several times during its first decade as it weathered both the Great Depression and the death of its original owner. Vitek's entered a new phase, however, when William Martin's son, William "Willie" Frank Vitek, took over following his father's passing.

As the small town of Waco grew and developed over the next several years, so did Vitek's Grocery. In addition to running the business, Willie also built Vitek's current location at 1600 Speight Avenue in 1958, the same year that construction of Interstate 35 began in Waco. While many businesses were unable to survive the disruption of highway construction, the creativity of Willie and his son, Billy Joe Vitek, helped the business to stay afloat. Willie began to cook barbecue on a portable pit, serving barbecue sandwiches and homemade sausage to customers. Vitek's takeout service was thus born, making the shop's premium barbecue more accessible than ever.

The building of I-35, however, was not the only challenge that Vitek's met. During this time, many smaller family stores were driven out of business by larger chains that could offer a greater variety of goods at lower prices. The number of small grocers and butcher shops dramatically decreased in the second half of the twentieth century as towns expanded into suburbs and cars became more ubiquitous. Luckily, the decline of small family grocers in the United States roughly paralleled the rise of quick-service restaurants—a shift that the Vitek family was poised to take advantage of. Billy Joe and his wife, Susan, took over the business in 1972, officially changing the name from Vitek's Grocery to Vitek's BBQ. While the original restaurant contained only one picnic table and operated off of a takeout-only business model, it rapidly evolved into the quick-service restaurant that remains a local staple today.

Vitek's identity as a Waco icon was cemented when, in the early 1980s, Billy Joe and a Baylor student employee concocted the now-famous Gut Pack, which later went on to be recognized in such publications as The American Way, The New York Times, and Texas Monthly. Thanks to the advent of the Gut Pack and the restaurant's status as a cherished Waco eatery, Vitek's was named one of the "Best College Eats" by the Cooking Channel and has received praise from the likes of ESPN and the Travel Channel.

In 2006, Billy Joe and Susan retired, leaving the restaurant to their daughter, Julie Vitek Keith, a fourth-generation owner of the establishment. In 2007, Julie and her husband, Jason, expanded the dining area and added an outdoor biergarten well-suited to live entertainment. While the Waco of today presents a marked contrast to that of the restaurant's early days, Vitek’s is proof that innovation, customer service, and delicious barbecue have indeed remained constant.

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The area which once comprised Edgefield Neighborhood has undergone significant changes over the last century. Located on the south side of the city, it encompassed the area between what is today Waco Creek to the north, Brazos River to the east, La Salle Avenue to the south, and Third Street to the west. The land originally was comprised of cotton fields, and its first prominent building was the Miller Cotton Mill, constructed in 1919. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cotton dominated Waco’s economy and Edgefield drew in workers from surrounding farms to the mill.

This influx of people to Edgefield developed the area into a full-fledged neighborhood. What had once been large expanses of fields was divided up in the 1910s and 1920s into individual parcels of land, large enough that many residents kept cows and chickens and cultivated their own gardens. The area also attracted more mills and factories—among them twine mills, a handle factory, and a pickle factory. These establishments owned properties in what was known as “mill block,” a four- to five-block stretch of First Street adjacent to the cotton mill, which employers rented out to their workers. Because they were company owned, these houses tended to be better equipped than others in Edgefield.

Edgefield was a low-income, working-class neighborhood. Most residents lived in inexpensive wooden shotgun houses, many of which were built with lumber from the deconstruction of Camp MacArthur. Residents often built these structures themselves, leaving many of them structurally unsound. Residents typically rented rather than owned the land which their homes sat upon, and in order to pay the rent, both parents and children usually held jobs. When finances were particularly tight, multiple families lived together to make ends meet.

Despite financial challenges, Edgefield residents formed a tight-knit community. A strong religious undercurrent served as one of Edgefield’s most binding elements. The area was home to a variety of denominations, from Baptist to Episcopal to Pentecostal. These churches ran outreach ministries to serve and strengthen the community. In 1890, First Baptist Church of Waco began mission efforts in the Edgefield area to serve the mill block community living and working there. This community organized under their own identity as Edgefield Baptist Church in 1917. In addition to Christian families, Jewish families also resided in Edgefield, although the area did not have a synagogue. Because of the residents’ strong religious ties, many saw Edgefield as a safe and pleasant neighborhood. As Woodrow Calvin Carlile put it, “the community was not only safe, but everybody seemed to expect a high standard of morality even if sometimes they didn’t reach it.”

The midcentury brought sweeping changes to Waco and Edgefield. The declining cotton industry led to the closure of the Miller Cotton Mill in the 1950s, and the structurally unsound residences in Edgefield had reached a point of major dilapidation. Sadly, the downturn in the Edgefield area was not an anomaly. The 1953 tornado and white flight had left most of the older areas of the city in disrepair.

Baylor University, which bordered Edgefield as well as other declining neighborhoods, was pushing to expand and the City of Waco found a solution to both issues in a series of urban renewal projects. Between 1958 and 1978, the City of Waco completed a series of nine urban renewal projects aimed at revitalizing these areas. The last of these was the Edgefield project, with approximately $2.2 million going toward rehabilitating twenty-four residences and the razing of just over 197 acres of land, which were then purchased by Baylor University. The university has since developed the area to include buildings such as its riverside sports complex and the Baylor Science Building.

Urban renewal is undoubtedly the most controversial piece of Edgefield’s history. Intended to improve Waco’s aesthetic appeal, living conditions, and economy, the program displaced hundreds of poor families and broke up tight-knit communities. While some argued that the Edgefield project succeeded in improving conditions, others were quick to point out that Baylor University served as the primary beneficiary of the program rather than the general public.

Today, the part of the old Edgefield neighborhood that was not sold to the university is the site of new housing and apartment complexes that cater to university faculty and students. The old cotton mill building—which later became L. L. Sams and Sons and has now been converted into high-end loft apartments—stands as a physical reminder of what used to be Edgefield Neighborhood. 

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General Tire & Rubber Company came to Waco in late 1944, the company’s second plant after its Akron, Ohio, headquarters. The company originally constructed the plant in order to supply equipment for the US Armed Forces during World War II. By January of 1945, workers began production. According to William O’Neal, General Tire’s president, the new Waco location acknowledged that “the war [had] dissipated the old idea that all manufacturing had to be done in the North, that the South could hope to be no more than an agricultural area.” Congressman W. R. Poage of Texas guided O’Neal in his decision to open a plant in Texas.

The Waco plant produced products such as truck tires for the US Army and Navy, as well as other rubber-based equipment such as rafts and specialized balloons for wartime use. After the war, the company acquired nearly full control of the plant from the US government and began to switch from military production to consumer- and industrial-based products. In November of 1945, the first passenger-car tire was built, and soon after, 2,500 were made daily. By 1954, the plant had doubled in size and was building 6,000 passenger-car, truck, tractor, and farm-service tires.

A large surge in tire production occurred in 1955 when the company received a contract to make original equipment tires. Cars made by General Motors rolled off of the automaker’s assembly lines equipped with tires made in Waco. At the same time, some models of General’s tires included the innovative tubeless design called the “Dual 90.” Other domestic automakers used Waco-built General products, and the plant produced millions of tires that rolled on American roads and beyond.

Due to demand, the Waco plant completed a 40 percent expansion in production capacity in the 1950s, and by 1984, continued success had enabled the size of the plant to grow considerably, with building space covering 49 acres under roof on 139 acres of land.

When the facility in Waco celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 1984, reference was made for the next forty year celebration, but this was not to be. In November of 1985, General Tire & Rubber Co. announced the closure of the Waco plant, which had a staff of more than 1,400 personnel, had an annual payroll of $42 million, and was responsible for $18 million monthly in expenditures into the area’s economy. Despite the plant’s closure, GENCO, the federal credit union chartered in 1953 to meet the financial needs of plant workers, expanded its field of membership and remains in operation in Waco today.

After the closure, an editorial in the Waco Tribune-Herald stated, “The announced closing of Waco’s General Tire plant leaves a cavernous void in Waco’s economy. It could be compared only to Baylor University pulling up stakes.” The number left without jobs from the plant’s closure numbered nearly 10 percent of the area’s manufacturing workforce. The last employees to leave the plant were 130 workers who remained at the General Tire & Rubber mixing facility, making bulk rubber to supply other General plants, until December 1990.

General Tire & Rubber Co. provided livelihoods for thousands of Wacoans throughout the plant’s forty-one years in operation. However, sudden and drastic changes in the automobile industry, the company’s inability to adapt machinery to keep up with changing tire designs and demands, and competition from imports all contributed to the demise of what was once Waco’s largest manufacturing facility.

The General Tire plant remained in disuse for many years, but some saw potential in the empty facility. In 2010, Baylor University heavily renovated the main building for the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC). Baylor University, Texas State Technical College, and leading industries use this space for advance research in fields such as engineering, air science, and quantum optics. Students are able to experience some of the latest innovations in these fields and get hands-on experience in their fields of study—helping Waco continue to innovate and train a new generation well into the future.

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During the early twentieth century, Waco experienced economic growth, large amounts of community engagement and recreation, as well as racial tension and military training. Photographer Fred A. Gildersleeve, nicknamed “Gildy,” immortalized the lives and times of this community dynamic by snapping thousands of photographs of the city spanning over forty years.

The man who would become Waco’s most famous photographer, Fred Gildersleeve, was born near Boulder, Colorado, on June 30, 1880, to Captain Allen Jesse and Sarah Ellen Pew Gildersleeve. His father Allen was a Civil War veteran, having served as a Union Army Captain in the Missouri Cavalry, 14, Regiment, Company D, and died in 1881 at the age of 46. After his father’s death, the family moved to Kirksville, Missouri, near the mother’s family. There, young Fred became a race horse jockey and attended the Model School (part of the Normal School) graduating at the age of 16.

His photography career then began at the age of eighteen when he was given an 1898 Kodak box camera by his mother. Because Gildersleeve used a printing method that relied on sunlight to develop the image on solio paper, he could only photograph when it was sunny outside. He prospered anyway, photographing students and selling the photographs for twenty-five cents apiece, earning about six dollars a week, which paid for his education. Gildersleeve then moved on to study photography in Effingham, Illinois, where he honed his skill through capturing images of flowers, lizards, and still-lifes. After graduating from the Illinois College of Photography in 1903, he worked in Chicago for a year and half before moving to Waco in 1905 to open his own studio. His sister, Jessie Ellen, arrived in Waco around the same time to work as a doctor of Osteopathy. Their mother, Sarah Gildersleeve later joined them and lived with her daughter. Fred married Florence Jennette Boyd on December 24, 1908, in Texarkana, Arkansas, who then joined him in Waco.

The shutterbug was easily recognizable as he cruised around Waco on a motorcycle with his assistant riding along in the sidecar, and then later upgraded to a Model T Ford. His box-style camera, wooden tripod, and spunky personality captured Waco’s talent and development, while the city supported Gildy in his career in return. Gildersleeve became a pioneer in the field of industrial photography in Texas and was invited to photograph more places and affairs than any other photographer in Waco. Examples include his commercial photography from the air in the mid-1910s. He made himself famous by photographing a pioneer flyer circling the Amicable building in 1911, along with capturing oil fields in Mexia and taking the first aerial photos known to exist of Baylor University. His ability to use magnesium powder to create “flashlight” to illuminate night-time photographs broke national records.

His 1911 photo of Waco’s Prosperity Banquet set a record for being the largest flash photo ever at that time. The event seated 1,200 people and ran the length of two city blocks. His skills at photo enlargement also set records. In 1913, he enlarged a panoramic photograph of Waco’s Texas Cotton Palace to 120 inches wide (ten feet) becoming the largest photo print in existence. He had a representative from Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York, bring him the photo paper to do so. He also photographed the construction of the Amicable Life Insurance Company Building “Alico” in Waco. The structure, being 22 stories tall, held the title of being the tallest building in the Southwestern United States upon construction in 1911.

Further, Gildersleeve was an active and prominent member in the Waco community. The Standard Blue Book of Texas, 1920, lists him as being a member of the Masons, York Rite, Shriners, Rotary Club, Ad Club, Young Men’s Business League (Y.M.B.L.), Chamber of Commerce, and as serving on the committees of Liberty Loan, the Salvation Army, and the Red Cross. His involvement with these groups and organizations allowed him to prosper in his photography business as well as give back to his community. When the Y.M.B.L. went on their “Trade Excursions” to promote the city of Waco, Gildersleeve joined them as both a photographer and member. As well as being a professional photographer, Gildersleeve also owned and operated the “Kodak Place,” his own studio in Waco (pinned on the map below), for several decades. There he developed film brought in by customers and sold Gildersleeve photo prints directly to the public, including his images printed on postcards. These picture postcards featured businesses and events. Most infamously, Gildersleeve took photos of the Jesse Washington Lynching in May 1916. Outside of Waco, Gildersleeve is well-known as the photographer who profited from distributing and selling postcards of this gruesome event. Although not intended by Gildersleeve, these images of the lynching and mob action became important evidence used in the NAACP’s anti-lynching campaign.

Gildersleeve’s background in racing horses also instilled a lifelong love for athletics. He was contracted by Baylor University from 1909 until the mid-1950s. He photographed Baylor’s sporting events including football, etc. His camera lens also captured the history of theater productions, soldiers at Camp MacArthur, parties, picnics, places of worship, circuses, weddings, funerals, politicians, automobiles, planes, and anything else related to life in Waco. Gildersleeve’s affections also included hunting and fishing. His state-of-the-art photography equipment captured rainbows in New Mexico, boatloads of bass in Guerrero, Mexico, as well as images of the Texas coast. Even though his antiquated large format equipment seemed cumbersome, his skills were still in demand by those in Waco who had known his work for decades.

In his later career, hundreds of acetate negatives were tragically lost in a back-alley dumpster after Gildersleeve’s marriage of thirty years ended in divorce in 1943. Luckily a collection of glass negatives survived the messy split. The couple never reconciled and remained apart the remainder of their lives. Florence continued to live in Waco after their separation and died March 31, 1965, at the age of 79. Gildersleeve’s health declined earlier in the 1950s. He died in Waco on February 26, 1958 at age 77 and was buried next to his sister, Dr. Jessie Ellen Gildersleeve in Waco Memorial Park. The cause of death was listed on his death certificate as pneumonia with complications from arterial scoliosis.

Gildersleeve’s last will and testament left around 1,400 surviving glass negatives to his good friend and local historian, Roger Norman Conger, who realized the importance of his work and later gave them to The Texas Collection at Baylor University where they are preserved today. The Texas Collection has just published a new book through the BU Press called: “Gildersleeve-Waco’s Photographer.” It contains a select few of Fred Gildersleeve’s original 8×10 inch glass plate negatives and photo prints that were digitized from originals held in the Gildersleeve-Conger Collection #430 and throughout the archives. Fred Gildersleeve was a pioneer in his photography career, as well as a citizen who was supportive of the community and was able to preserve over forty years of Waco’s history through clear and sharp images. Through his photography, Gildersleeve and the history of Waco are well remembered.

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La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant & Cantina serves as a landmark of the success of the Castillo family—one of the oldest Central Texas restaurant families still in business today.

Family patriarch Antonio P. Castillo Sr. started the Castillo restaurant legacy when he purchased the Old Texas Café in downtown Waco in 1920. After recognizing the local demand for Mexican food, Castillo closed the Texas Café in 1926 and opened the Aztec Café at 818 Austin Avenue. The Aztec introduced authentic Tex-Mex cuisine to the area, quickly becoming a popular place to dine. Baylor students especially enjoyed the restaurant due to the dance hall in the back of the restaurant nicknamed The Patio.

The business developed into a family venture. Castillo’s seven children grew up at the same time the Aztec Café served downtown Wacoans. Antonio and his wife, Josephine, taught them how to make pralines—a Mexican candy still served at Castillo restaurants today—the old-fashioned way. Each of the children became involved in the family restaurant business at one time or another.

In 1948, the Castillos opened El Patio, a restaurant located on Sixteenth Street. Shortly after its opening, an Italian airman serving at Waco’s James Connally Air Force Base introduced Antonio and his sons to the art of making pizza. He also taught them the proper technique for making lasagna, spaghetti, and manicotti—dishes popular among the airmen from the Northeast who populated the air force base. Capitalizing on the new and popular Italian cuisine options while continuing to serve Tex-Mex food, the Castillos renamed the restaurant The Italian Village in 1952—a name that remained until its closing in 1986.

One of Castillo’s children, Sam Castillo Sr., left the Italian Village in 1963 to follow in his father’s footsteps and open his own restaurant, on the corner of Eighteenth Street and Washington Avenue. La Fiesta Mexican Restaurant & Cantina is one of the Castillo restaurants which remains in operation today, although it relocated to Franklin Avenue at Valley Mills Drive in 1972. The restaurant quickly became a local favorite, known for its unique menu combining traditional family recipes with new and fresh takes on dishes.

In the mid-twentieth century, Castillo family members opened various Tex-Mex restaurants throughout the city, including two additional La Fiesta locations which operated until the early twenty-first century, and Casa de Castillo on Sanger Avenue.

The vision of four generations of the Castillo family continues today with La Fiesta’s commitment to quality Tex-Mex cuisine from decades-old family recipes. The restaurant strives to preserve the vision of Antonio Castillo’s original restaurant by serving up fresh ingredients, original family recipes, and a lively atmosphere.

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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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Floyd Casey Stadium housed the Baylor Football Program from 1950 until the opening of McLane Stadium in the fall of 2014. In 1936, Baylor Football’s home turf was Municipal Stadium, located at Fifteenth Street and Dutton Avenue. With a maximum seating of twenty thousand, it didn’t take long for the Baylor Football Program to outgrow this facility.

In the late 1940s, a 500-member-strong Baylor Stadium Corporation formed to provide a new home for the Bears, and Baylor President W. R. White banded together with Waco civic leaders in order to get the job done. The corporation initially projected preliminary construction costs at $1.5 million. The city agreed to put $500,000 toward the project, and the university estimated that $1 million could be raised from non-Waco resources such as Baylor alumni, football fans, and “outstanding Baptists [sic] laymen.”

In order to raise the money, the Baylor Stadium Corporation issued thirty-year stadium bonds at 3 percent interest. Bonds of $100 or more could be applied as a tuition credit and prospective students received “entrance priority.” The corporation also provided supporters with the option of purchasing seats, which guaranteed a seat for all home games for twenty years following the construction of the stadium, with prices varying according to stadium seat locations.

Fundraisers traveled across Texas, with exhortations from President White that “Baylor is not asking for a gift. The bonds are sound investments from a financial standpoint. The [seating] options are investments in future entertainment for sports lovers.” The rhetoric worked. By January of 1950, $1,001,836.70 worth of bonds and stadium seat options were sold.

While fundraisers were out stumping, Baylor searched for the perfect location for the stadium. Although the university wanted to remain in the same area as Municipal Stadium on the grounds of the former Texas Cotton Palace, parking posed an issue and a geological fault on the land raised construction concerns. On to Plan B. A February 1949 news release announced the purchase of a 100-acre plot in Waco’s west suburbs for the new Baylor Stadium.

The university held the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Baylor Stadium on May 28, 1949, and construction began in November of the same year. Even though the stadium wasn’t quite finished, the Bears played their first game at Baylor Stadium on September 30, 1950, against the University of Houston.

At the time of that first game, the stadium sat forty-nine thousand people and was hailed as a “Fittin’ home for the Fightin’ Baylor Bears.” Opening ceremonies included a flyover by planes from nearby Connally Air Force Base, while the University of Houston band played the national anthem and Baylor Air Force ROTC color guard raised the colors. Baylor even beat the University of Houston 34-7 on the long-awaited opening day.

Legendary sportswriter Dave Campbell reported in a 1957 Waco Tribune-Herald article that “the show-piece stadium” where “every seat is good” cost $1,668,790.27. In the years following the first game, the stadium was renovated several times in order to account for increased attendance and ticket sales. One of the largest projects occurred in the late 1980s when Carl B. Casey donated $5 million toward an $8 million renovation plan. At the 1988 homecoming game, the stadium was renamed to honor his father, Floyd Casey.

Although primarily constructed to serve the football team, Floyd Casey Stadium also hosted other events for both Baylor and the Waco community. For many years, the university held graduation ceremonies in the stadium and once even hosted an ice skating fundraiser after installing several large tanks of water on the field. Wacoans often watched area high schools play on the collegiate field, and in the aftermath of the Waco tornado, the stadium housed servicemen from Fort Hood assisting in the cleanup and rescue efforts.

After serving both Baylor and the Waco community for over sixty years, Floyd Casey Stadium held a record-setting crowd of 51,728 at the stadium’s final game, a victory over the University of Texas on December 7, 2013.

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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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Waco Female College served as an influential institution of higher learning for women in the nineteenth century.

The consolidation of two other female educational institutions, Waco Female Seminary and Waco Female Academy, led to the formation of Waco Female College. Although the new school was chartered on February 11, 1860, through the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, it was operated as a nonsectarian institution. Several notable Methodist preachers, including Rev. Franklin Collett Wilkes and Rev. William McKendree Lambdin, served as the institution’s first presidents. Professor Ferdinand Plummer Maddin, McLennan County’s tax assessor and collector, was named the first permanent president in 1859, serving the school for ten years.

Land surveyor George Erath had made provisions for female education in what was to become Waco when he first laid out the city’s original municipal plat in 1849. Between 1859 and 1860, the college erected a main building in a square bounded by Jackson and Webster Avenues and Second and Third Streets, a section of land which Erath had specifically designated for women’s education. The physical building grew along with the school, with the addition of a boarding department in 1872 and kindergarten and primary departments in 1883.

Courses of study for students at Waco Female College included penmanship, rhetoric, trigonometry, “evidences of Christianity,” mental “phylosophy,” ancient and modern geography, map-drawing, English, American and world history, astronomy, geology, botany, physiology, and Latin. To earn a degree, a woman had to pass all courses, with the exception of being allowed to swap Latin for art, music, French, or German.

The college considered “physical culture,” mainly calisthenics, to be of the utmost importance, and the course was mandatory for all students. According to an 1883-1884 booklet of course offerings, “Of all the classes of pupils, young ladies, and especially those who are hard students, need exercise the most, and none are as much inclined to neglect it.”

Students paid twenty-five dollars in tuition per term, as well as seventy dollars for boarding and a diploma fee of five dollars, paid in advance of graduation. Hoping to expand the college, the school moved from its original downtown site to a 13.5-acre campus on the outskirts of Waco about 1892. Enrollment rose significantly, from around 125 to over 200 students between 1883 and 1893. Despite this increase in attendance, the school soon ran into issues. The college closed in 1895 because of financial difficulties, likely caused by the debt of its expansion coupled with the economic panic of 1893.

AddRan Christian University, forerunner of the school known today as Texas Christian University, purchased the foreclosed properties. A devastating 1910 blaze forced TCU trustees to move the college to Fort Worth.

Formed just four years after Waco Village incorporated as a town, Waco Female College stood as one of the most significant and influential efforts to provide education for women in the mid-nineteenth century. 

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For over a century, Baylor University has served as one of the various educational institutions contributing to Waco’s reputation as the “Athens on the Brazos.” Constructed to house the university’s administration, Pat Neff Hall came to serve as a symbol of the university’s legacy and tradition.

Despite the economic uncertainty of the 1930s, enrollment at the nearly century-old Baylor University rapidly continued to increase. The large influx of students under the presidency of former Texas Governor Pat Neff led to overcrowded classrooms and dwindling faculty space. Thus, when the General Education Board, a New York-based philanthropic organization dedicated to supporting higher-education institutions, offered $50,000 for the construction of an administration building to free up classroom space, the university seized the opportunity.

On December 7, 1938, the university held a Masonic cornerstone-laying ceremony to mark the beginning of construction on the new building. The architectural firm Birch D. Easterwood and Son designed a 46,000-square-foot American Georgian-style structure, which cost around $250,000 to complete. Workers finished construction on the building in 1939, although it was not dedicated until February 1, 1940, on Founder’s Day, the day on which the university celebrates its founders and commemorates the anniversary of its charter.

Named for the president who saw the university through a difficult economy which threatened to close the school, the hall features inscriptions on all sides favored by Pat Neff. The east and west halls bear two quotes from scripture, including the passage form Proverbs advising that “wisdom is better than rubies.” A line under the eaves just above the third floor notes “the youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity,” a quote from Benjamin Disraeli that Neff once used a chapel speech. As noted by retired Baylor professor Robert Reid, the building came to reflect not only Neff’s tremendous passion for the importance of education, but also the hope of the founders of the university to establish a center of learning for “all ages to come.”

One of the building’s most distinctive features today is its gold roof which can be seen from various points throughout the city. Yet the roof was originally stainless steel, and remained so for many years. At the time of its construction, it was only the second stainless steel roof in the entire nation. The university added gold leafing in 2000.

Within the tower lies another famous aspect of Pat Neff Hall: the carillon. In December of 1939, the set of twenty-five chimes donated by trustee Thomas Cullen rang out across campus for the first time with the hymn “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.” The bells inevitably wore out and in 1988 were replaced by the current forty-eight-bell carillon donated by Regent Emeritus Drayton McLane. The new bells were constructed in France and, after a shipping mishap which sent them to Mexico was remedied, were dedicated on November 4, 1988.

In addition to fulfilling its main function of housing the office of the president and other administrative officials, Pat Neff Hall has come to serve as a center of Baylor tradition. The practice of lighting the hall up with green lights following an athletic win began in 1978 and continues today. Perhaps the most widely recognized use of the hall is its prominent placement on the university institutional mark. Used for all official communication purposes, the symbol featuring Pat Neff Hall serves as a testament to the university’s legacy, tradition, and commitment to education.

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On January 22, 1927, tragedy struck Baylor University when a collision near Round Rock, Texas, ended the lives on ten students en route to an athletic event.

Aboard the bus that day were twenty-two young men from Baylor University bound for a basketball game against the University of Texas. In addition to players, the vehicle carried managers, yell leaders, and fans. Heavy rain made the lengthy ride to Austin treacherous. Driver Joe Potter had a difficult time navigating the unfamiliar road due to poor visibility and slick road surfaces.

After three and a half hours of driving, the bus reached the railroad crossing in Round Rock. Fast approaching from the west was the Sunshine Special, a northbound passenger train. The Sunshine Special was behind schedule, so its engineer urged it ahead at a speed of sixty miles per hour. As the train neared the crossing the engineer fired its whistle, but no one on the bus heard the screech. By the time Potter saw the train, it was too late to stop on the slick street. He pressed the accelerator and tried to push the bus past the tracks ahead of the train. When the bus failed to get up to speed in time, Potter swerved in a desperate attempt to avoid collision. Several students jumped or were thrown out of the bus as it lurched over the tracks. Tragically, only half of the bus managed to clear the tracks before the train caught the vehicle’s rear end.

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, local residents and medical personnel worked hard to treat the injured and identify the dead. Sadly, ten young men did not survive the collision: Jack Castellaw, Sam Dillow, Merle Dudley, Ivey Foster, Robert Hannah, Robert Hailey, Clyde (Abe) Kelley, Willis Murray, James L. Walker, and William Winchester.

Baylor University and the greater community of Waco deeply felt the loss of the ten. Baylor hosted a memorial service that drew over three thousand people. A mayoral proclamation saw local businesses closed, and the city’s telephone system shut down for the hour of the service.

Though individual memorials exist for each member of the deceased, the group lives on in popular memory as the Immortal Ten, a title coined by Waco Times-Herald reporter Jack Hawkins. In the January 23, 1927 issue of the paper, Hawkins wrote, “Though Death’s icy fingers have written ‘Finis’ across the life of each of the immortal ten who are today mourned, their memory will never perish.”

The legacy of the Immortal Ten is far-reaching. The terrible accident prompted politicians to re-examine railway safety in the state. Eight years after the accident, Texas’ first railroad overpass was built over the tracks in Round Rock. The memory of the Immortal Ten also serves as the foundation for one of Baylor’s most important homecoming traditions. Each year, the story of the Immortal Ten is told anew to freshmen and a candlelight remembrance ceremony is held. Freshmen are encouraged to band together and embrace the spirit of togetherness that helped heal the campus in the wake of tragedy.

After ten years of planning and fundraising, a permanent memorial to the Immortal Ten was installed in Traditions Square on Baylor campus. It features a ten-by-eight-foot bas-relief panel representing six of the fallen ten athletes. Four free-standing life-sized bronze statues of the remaining athletes compliment the panel. Bruce Greene, renowned western sculptor, crafted the monument. 

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Tidwell Bible Building stands as a physical memorial not only to the formation of Baylor’s modern Department of Religion, but also as a symbol of the university’s dedication to Christian ideals.

Prior to 1910, Baylor’s Bible Department offered primarily professional training for ministers. Yet the entire department moved to Fort Worth after becoming a theological seminary officially independent of the university in 1908. As the new head of the Baylor religion department, Josiah Blake Tidwell shifted the focus of the department toward the education of undergraduates. Though it reflected Tidwell’s highly traditional and conservative values, he viewed the department as a primarily academic department, and his work served as the origin for the current religion department.

Strongly influenced by his work, 125 of Tidwell’s students met at the Baptist General Convention of Texas at Mineral Wells in 1936 to discuss plans to erect a building on the Baylor campus bearing his name. Although the students launched a fundraising campaign for the construction of a simple building that same year, it took nearly eighteen years for the realization of their vision.

As enrollment increased at Baylor University and classroom space dwindled, the Tidwell Bible Building Committee formed in the mid-1940s when the university realized the practical need for a new building for the religion department. The committee employed different marketing strategies in order to obtain enough money to complete the project. For instance, December 2, 1945 was declared Tidwell Bible Building Day, and Baptist churches throughout the state took up collections to fund the construction. But it was a pamphlet produced in the late-1940s and early-1950s bearing Guy A. Carlander’s suggested design for a grandiose building which ultimately secured enough pledges for the groundbreaking ceremony to take place in 1949.

Baylor president W. R. White spoke at the dedication held in Tidwell Bible Building’s Miller Memorial Chapel on October 22, 1954. Designed by the architectural firm Birch D. Easterwood and Son to bear enough symbolism to indicate its use for religious purposes without resembling a church structure, the seven-floor building cost around $600,000 to construct.

Sixty-eight limestone panels depicting biblical scenes make up one of the most distinctive features of the building. Planned by Baylor religion professors and designed and carved by Ira Correll and son, the ornate panels encircle the building twice bearing images of stories from both the Old and New Testament.

In addition to housing enough classroom space for up to 800 students, the new building also held space for the Tidwell Bible Library, office space for faculty, and Miller Memorial Chapel. Since its dedication in 1953, the structure has housed classes for the religion, history, philosophy, sociology, nursing, modern foreign language, and sacred music departments.

In 2020, Tidwell underwent extensive renovations intended to maximize space, improve infrastructure, and increase accessibility while preserving the defining features of the building. One major change to the building was the conversion of Miller Memorial Chapel to classroom and office space, as the proliferation of chapels on campus meant it was no longer the primary chapel of the university, and faculty office space in Tidwell was limited in the past.

Today, Tidwell Bible Building remains home to the religion, sociology, and history departments, and towers over the campus as a physical reminder of the university’s commitment to Christian ideals and education.

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Pauline Pipkin Garrett studied music at Baylor in the 1920s, but then the family business came a-calling. Under her leadership, W. P. Pipkin Drugs became one of the Southwest’s largest independently owned drugstore chains.

After graduating from Baylor University in 1923 with a BA in music, Pauline’s interests turned to the family business—W. P. Pipkin Drugs located at 418 Elm Avenue. Seeking to one day take over the business from her father, Pauline enrolled in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, where she excelled. The Waco News-Tribune on December 21, 1924, reported that she made the “highest grades in her class in a competitive examination.” The article also stated that the college had three thousand men and only one hundred women enrolled at the time.

In 1926, Pauline received a BA in pharmacology, became a licensed pharmacist, and joined her father in his business. William Pipkin was the first drugstore owner in Waco to hire women. In a recollection published in the May 26, 1957, Waco Tribune-Herald, Pauline recalls a customer asking, “‘You reckon that’ll do—a girl selling cigars?’ He [W. P. Pipkin] said, ‘They’ll do better than some of these jelly beans.’ They called the boys ‘jelly beans’ in those days.”

Pauline worked in several departments, including the soda fountain where she washed dishes. In doing so, she got to know more about her employees and work practices. This would help in later years when she took over management after her father’s death in 1935, and full ownership when her mother, Irene, died in 1953. After Pauline took over full operations, the Pipkin chain then grew from three to seven stores and was recognized nationally as an award-winning seller of Rexall products—Pipkin’s main product line.

Life wasn’t all about work for Pauline—she did maintain her love for music. While in pharmacy school, according to the December 1924 Waco News-Tribune article, “She made several vocal and cello records for the Victor Company at Camden, N.J.” Back at home, she played the cello in various Waco orchestras. In 1930, she was given the opportunity to go to Europe and play with a symphony.

Pauline married Waco attorney Barney Garrett on January 15, 1936. They purchased one of Waco’s most distinctive homes, the Cottonland Castle at 3300 Austin Avenue. She dedicated one of the rooms to music, filling it with a grand piano and several string instruments.

 Pauline passed away at home in 1963. Her husband sold Pipkin Drugs to a firm in Garland, Texas, and it became a Rexall drugstore. By 1967, all but one of the former seven Pipkin stores had closed, with the last location at 3900 Bosque Boulevard.

In an age where business opportunities for women were limited, Pauline Pipkin Garrett became a successful pharmacist and expanded her father's modest drug store business into a thriving enterprise with seven locations throughout Waco.  

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