Baylor College of Dentistry

In its first decades the school was a business and a moving target. State Dental College opened in 1905 on the second floor of the Juanita Building on Commerce Street. T. G. Bradford replaced David Morrow as dean in 1907 and moved it to a larger building on South Ervay Street. Bradford and C. L. Morey remained the largest stockholders until they sold to Baylor on May 28, 1918, after twenty-six graduates. Not until 1950 did it have quarters built for dental education, and in 1957 the first dental hygienists ever graduated in Texas received diplomas.

What the plaque says

Baylor College of Dentistry Two St. Louis dentists, Dr. David E. Morrow and Dr. Thomas G. Bradford, began seeking a site in Texas for a dental college in the early 1900s. Although most Dallas dentists opposed a local dental school, others viewed the growing commercial center as an ideal location for what was called State Dental College, chartered in February 1905. Classes began on October 3 of that year. In its first years, the school faced many challenges, including a national economic downturn in 1907. In 1915, however, members of the Dallas County Dental Society became involved with the college, agreeing to serve on an advisory board that oversaw operations and instruction. The school affiliated with Baylor University in 1918. Renamed Baylor University College of Dentistry, it shared resources with Baylor University College of Medicine, also located in Dallas. With a strengthened basic sciences program, the school gained national recognition and "Class A" accreditation. In the 1940s, the college accelerated its program to graduate more dentists to aid U.S. troops in World War II. In 1943, the medical school relocated to Houston, taking with it many faculty members. The dental college chose to remain but struggled to maintain its academic footing. It eventually expanded its clinical services and established a school of dental hygiene and specialized graduate-level curricula. The college separated from Baylor University in 1971 and became Baylor College of Dentistry. In the 1990s, it joined the Texas A&M University System as a charter member of its Health Science Center. Today, it is nationally recognized for oral health education, research, specialized patient care and continuing education. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 1.1 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 1.1 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 1.2 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.
• Fair Park — 1.4 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.

More markers nearby

• City of East Dallas — steps away
• Baylor University Medical Center — steps away
• Wilson Block — steps away
• Sons of Hermann in Dallas — 0.4 mi