Abilene Christian University

The move to this campus nearly ruined the college. In the 1920s the trustees bought 680 acres of open ranchland on Abilene's northeast edge, kept a campus and sold the rest as lots, and voted $500,000 in bonds to build eight buildings in 1928 and 1929. The crash stalled the bonds, buyers handed back their lots, and the school faced foreclosure until John G. and Mary Hardin of Burkburnett gave securities that retired the debt in 1934. Full accreditation waited until 1951.

What the plaque says

This school, formed to provide a Christian education for all grade levels, was founded in 1906 by A. B. Barret, an early educator and preacher for Texas Churches of Christ. It was first called Childers Classical Institute in honor of Colonel J. W. Childers, who deeded his homesite at North 1st and Victoria streets for use as a campus. Early expansion of the institution began in 1912 with the 12-year presidency of Jesse P. Sewell. In 1920 it became Abilene Christian College and nine years later was moved to new facilities here. The present name was adopted in 1976. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frontier Texas! — 1.6 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 12 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 14 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Abilene State Park — 19 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.

More markers nearby

• Site of Old Headquarters of the Hashknife Ranch — 0.7 mi
• Morgan Jones — 0.9 mi
• Willis, Thomas Middlebrook — 1.0 mi
• Claiborne Walker Merchant — 1.0 mi