Bible teacher Lewis Sperry Chafer opened a small evangelical college in Dallas in the fall of 1924 with thirteen students, and two years later the school bought the Gaston estate at Swiss Avenue and St. Joseph Street in East Dallas. Its first two permanent buildings, finished in the late 1920s, still frame the compact campus, and later decades added a chapel named for the founder, a library, and academic centers. Renamed Dallas Theological Seminary in 1936, it grew into one of the largest Protestant seminaries in the world. This short walk visits the original halls, the founder's chapel, the library, and a converted neighborhood church, all within a few East Dallas blocks.
About this site
Dallas Theological Seminary 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 32.7944, -96.7804 near Dallas. The nearest cataloged historic site is Criswell College (college & university), about 0.2 miles away. Others within a short drive include Grace United Methodist Church, Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, and East Dallas.
History
Dallas Theological Seminary opened in the fall of 1924, when about a dozen students gathered to study under Bible teacher Lewis Sperry Chafer. Chafer planned the school with his brother Rollin T. Chafer and the English-born scholar W. H. Griffith Thomas, who had been slated to teach theology but died before the first term. Texas incorporated it in February 1925 as Evangelical Theological College, and its hallmark became an unusually long four-year Master of Theology program centered on the biblical languages, systematic theology and exposition of Scripture. Backers acquired land on Swiss Avenue in East Dallas in 1926; Davidson Hall and Stearns Hall followed in 1927, the same year a Doctor of Theology program started, and from 1934 the school issued the quarterly Bibliotheca Sacra. The Dallas Theological Seminary name dates from 1936. Chafer served as president until his death in 1952, and his successor, John F. Walvoord, stayed in office until 1986, a period that brought Chafer Chapel, Mosher Library and new master's and doctor of ministry programs. By 1976 enrollment had reached about 1,000, placing DTS among the five largest Protestant seminaries in the world, and later presidents including Charles R. Swindoll and Mark Bailey expanded its degree offerings and online education. Widely associated with dispensational theology, the seminary now teaches in Dallas, Houston and Washington, D.C., and at extension sites, and it marked its 100th year in 2024.
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