East Texas Baptist University Campus Tour

East Texas Baptist University began as the College of Marshall, the dream of local pastor W. T. Tardy, who believed this hill above Marshall was made for a college. In 1912 its backers bought 100 acres of the old Van Zandt family place, the town raised money for a first building, and classes began in 1917; the school became East Texas Baptist College in 1944. Its motto, 'May the Light on the Hill Never Die,' nods to that hilltop site. This walk starts at the original hall, visits the Van Zandt homesite, crosses the modern core of library and chapels, and ends at the historic cemetery that began as the Van Zandts' family graveyard.

East Texas Baptist University grew out of one Marshall pastor's belief that a certain hill above town was meant for a college. This walk explores that hill and how W. T. Tardy's idea became the school whose motto still reads, 'May the Light on the Hill Never Die.'

The land's story is older than the university. It was home to Isaac Van Zandt, one of Marshall's founders, who represented the Republic of Texas in Washington in the 1840s and was running for governor when yellow fever killed him in 1847. The college's backers bought 100 acres of the old Van Zandt place in 1912, and the town raised the money for Marshall Hall, a four-story brick building finished in 1916 that once held almost every part of the young college and is still the oldest building on campus.

A century of growth shows up across the hilltop. The Mamye Jarrett Library keeps a rare Bible collection with English Bibles going back to the sixteenth century, and the newer Chapel on the Hill hides a moving detail: in 2020, before its interior was finished, faculty, staff and neighbors wrote Bible verses and prayers directly on its bare walls. Greenwood Cemetery, which began as the Van Zandt family burial ground, holds figures whose names live on in Texas counties.

It's a compact, hilly stroll that ties a small Baptist university to the Republic of Texas, early Marshall and the faith tradition that still shapes campus life.