Daniel Baker College
Brownwood, Brown County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and named for early Texas circuit-riding minister Daniel Baker (1791-1857), this institution was founded in 1888 by the Rev. Brainard Taylor McClelland (1845-1901). The college officially was chartered on April 5, 1889. McClelland, under whose leadership Brownwood's First Presbyterian Church was founded in 1876, served as the college's first president. His wife, Susan Mary Smith McClelland, was a member of the college faculty and assumed a leadership role for two years following her husband's death. Land for the college campus was donated by brothers Samuel R. and Modie J. Coggin. The first class of Daniel Baker graduates, consisting of eight students, received diplomas in May 1895. In addition to academic instruction, the college also featured an active sports program, with football, baseball, track, and basketball teams. Plagued with financial problems throughout its history, the college was briefly affiliated with the Methodist and Episcopal denominations. Finally, in 1953, it was consolidated with Howard Payne College, a Baptist school also located in Brownwood. (1992)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1888 and chartered in 1889, Daniel Baker College took its name from an early Texas circuit-riding Presbyterian minister and was led first by the Rev. Brainard Taylor McClelland, who had founded Brownwood's First Presbyterian Church. On land given by the Coggin brothers, it graduated its first class of eight in 1895 and fielded football, baseball, track, and basketball teams. Long troubled by finances, it was consolidated with Howard Payne College in 1953.
Why it matters
Denominational colleges like Daniel Baker carried higher education to small Texas towns, shaping the region's teachers, ministers, and civic leaders for over sixty years.
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Related people
- · Daniel Baker
- · Brainard Taylor McClelland
- · Susan Mary Smith McClelland
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dr. Mollie W. Armstrong
Brownwood, TX
Mollie Wright Armstrong's path to optometry began when a traveling salesman fitted her with glasses that cured her chronic headaches. Studying largely on her own through correspondence courses, she earned her refraction degree in 1899 and opened an optical department in her husband's Brownwood store, becoming the first woman optometrist in Texas. She went on to help charter the Texas Optometric Association, serve as its first woman president in 1923, and sit on the state licensing board.
The Rev. Noah Turner Byars
Brownwood, TX
Noah T. Byars, a South Carolina–born blacksmith and gunsmith, set up shop at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where Texas delegates adopted their Declaration of Independence in 1836—after which he was named armorer of the Texas army. Ordained a Baptist preacher in 1841 and appointed the state convention's first missionary in 1848, he is credited with founding more than 60 churches across the Texas frontier. He helped organize Brownwood's First Baptist Church and championed the Baptist college that opened as Howard Payne in 1889, a year after his death.
The Rev. Dr. John David Robnett
Brownwood, TX
John David Robnett, a Missouri-born Baptist minister, came to Brownwood in 1883 and took up a fellow pastor's dream of a Baptist college in central Texas. Working through the Pecan Valley Baptist Association, he helped found the school in 1889 and raised the funds—much of it from his Missouri hometown—that gave Howard Payne its name and its start. He served as the college's first board president and later its president before returning to the pulpit.
Howard Payne University
Brownwood, TX
Howard Payne College grew out of an 1889 resolution by the Pecan Valley Baptist Association to found a college of its own, with Brownwood chosen as the site. Named for benefactor Edward Howard Payne, the school opened in September 1890—classes meeting in a hall as the cornerstone of its main building was laid the same day. It absorbed the neighboring Daniel Baker College in 1953 and reached university status in 1974.