Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary occupies a small, oak-shaded campus on 27th Street, just north of the University of Texas. The school opened in 1902 in a former girls' academy in East Austin and moved here in 1908 so its students could study alongside the university. This brief walk reads the three state historical markers clustered near the chapel, which tell the seminary's story from its 1880s forerunner onward, then visits the 1940s Gothic chapel that crowns the hill and the library at the center of campus life.
About this site
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a private college or university in Austin, Travis County. It is one of 8 degree-granting colleges and universities TexasRoam maps in Travis County.
The site sits at 30.2922, -97.7377 near Austin. The nearest cataloged historic site is Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Campus, Rebecca Kilgore Stuart Red, and Scottish Rite Dormitory.
The Presbyterian Synod of Texas wanted a seminary of its own so that ministers trained in the region would remain to lead its multiplying congregations across the Southwest. Sherman was seriously considered as the site, but in 1899 the synod settled on Austin, which already had a short-lived Presbyterian theology school (1884-1895) and was offered Stuart Hall, the East Austin building of the former Stuart Female Seminary. Thornton R. Sampson, named first president in 1900, spent two years raising an endowment and hiring professors, and a $75,000 gift from Sarah C. Ball of Galveston anchored the fund; the seminary opened on October 1, 1902, with five students at Ninth and Navasota streets and graduated its first class in 1905. Because the University of Texas lay two miles off and students and faculty moved back and forth between the two, the board bought land near the university in 1906 and put up Sampson Hall and a dining hall funded by former governor Francis R. Lubbock's bequest; the seminary moved to 27th Street and Speedway in March 1908. Today the seminary offers the Master of Divinity, including a dual degree in social work with UT Austin, along with master's and Doctor of Ministry programs and Spanish-language certificates for Hispanic congregations.
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.
