Dallas Baptist University started life in 1898 as Decatur Baptist College, 40-odd miles to the northwest, and moved to this hilltop above Mountain Creek Lake in 1965. Since then the campus has grown into a hilly, heavily landscaped showcase of Colonial American architecture, with buildings patterned on Independence Hall, Congress Hall, and Monticello. This walk begins at the school's historical marker, climbs to the tall white chapel and its prayer garden, and wanders among the replica halls before ending at the lakes.
About this site
Dallas Baptist University is a private college or university in Dallas, Dallas County. It is one of 18 degree-granting colleges and universities TexasRoam maps in Dallas County.
The site sits at 32.7080, -96.9481 near Dallas. The nearest cataloged historic site is Dallas Baptist University (Decatur Baptist College) (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery, Everard Sharrock, Jr. Farmstead, and Antioch Life Park Cemetery.
DBU traces its lineage to Northwest Texas Baptist College, founded in Decatur in 1891, which lost its property at auction after supporting churches failed to pay their pledges. The Baptist General Convention of Texas bought the campus in 1897 and reopened it the next year as Decatur Baptist College, a two-year school that for decades prepared students to continue at Baylor. At the invitation of the Dallas Baptist Association, the college moved in 1965 to a new hilltop site above Mountain Creek Lake in southwest Dallas, on land donated by John Stemmons, Roland Pelt and their associates, and more than 900 students enrolled that first fall as Dallas Baptist College. It became a senior college in 1968, awarded its first bachelor's degrees in 1970, and took the name Dallas Baptist University in 1985. Beginning with the 1992 Mahler Student Center, modeled on Philadelphia's Independence Hall, the campus has filled with Georgian-style buildings patterned on early American landmarks, including Pilgrim Chapel, Horner Hall and the Monticello-inspired Nation Hall. Today DBU enrolls students on its Dallas campus and regional centers and is widely known for its Division I baseball program.
See this site and every marker, cemetery, courthouse, museum and landmark across Texas on one live map — find what's near you, get directions, and check in as you roam.
