Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

When the board named Thornton Rogers Sampson president in 1900, he had to raise his own salary and a $100,000 endowment and ready the property. The seminary opened on October 1, 1902, at Ninth and Navasota streets in the former Stuart Seminary, and its first library came from the books of the Austin School of Theology. The enabling gift of $75,000 to the endowment came from Sarah C. Ball of Galveston. The synods of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana later joined Texas in owning and governing the school. Sampson resigned as president in December 1904 but kept teaching.

What the plaque says

Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary This seminary had its origins in the Austin School of Theology, begun in 1884 by the Rev. Dr. Richmond Kelley Smoot and the Rev. Dr. Robert Lewis Dabney to provide training for candidates for the Presbyterian ministry whom the founders hoped would remain in Texas and the Southwest. Smoot and Dabney both taught classes, but received no compensation. Although the school closed in 1895, continuing enthusiasm for a permanent seminary provided momentum to the Synod of Texas to appoint a committee to carry out this vision. The new institution opened in 1902 as the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, with the Rev. Dr. Thornton Rogers Sampson as president. Classes were held at an east Austin campus in a donated building. Wishing to take advantage of an academic partnership with the University of Texas, Sampson succeeded in moving the seminary campus to this site in 1908. Smoot's and Dabney's original goal of having seminary students remain in the region was realized, as graduates accepted calls to pastorates in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. After World War I, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary began a Spanish-speaking department to serve the Hispanic population in south Texas. Other programs have developed over the years to equip Presbyterian pastors with training and education for ministry in a rapidly changing world. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harry Ransom Center — 0.6 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 0.7 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.8 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.2 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Campus — steps away
• Rebecca Kilgore Stuart Red — steps away
• All Saints' Episcopal Church — steps away
• John Elbridge Hines — 0.3 mi