Baylor University on Windmill Hill

Trustee minutes name no enslaved workers, yet Baylor's 2020 commission concluded that enslaved people almost certainly built the first campus buildings here. After 1886 the hill went quiet, then briefly filled again. The Union Baptist Association ran Carey Crane Male College on the site, and in January 1889 a Prussian-born priest, Father Martin Huhn, moved his Guardian Angels orphanage and school for Black boys onto the campus. An 1891 directory counted thirty-five boys; by 1898 none. Huhn held the seventy-five acres until shortly before his death in 1915.

What the plaque says

Baylor University on Windmill Hill In 1845, the Republic of Texas chartered Baylor University at Independence, and it began on the west side of town on Academy Hill. Shortly, work on a second campus began here at Windmill Hill (Allen's Hill). James Huckins developed a site plan and a nearby quarry provided "superior building rock." Initially, Academy Hill served as the preparatory campus and Windmill Hill as the academic campus. In 1851, though, president Rufus Burleson directed development of the male department here, with the female department at Academy Hill. Early school buildings on Windmill Hill included frame dormitories and Graves Hall, a stone classroom structure built 1849-51 and named for the school's first president, Henry L. Graves. In all, eight buildings are known to have existed here as part of the school, and there may have been others. The structures included: Burleson Domicile, "The Octagon," built 1856-58; Houston Hall, for science classes and the library, built 1859-62; and Tryon Hall, the three-story main building, begun in 1861, prior to the Civil War, but not completed until 1882. Baylor University showed early promise at Independence, but facing declining enrollment and economic concerns, trustees voted to merge with Waco University, abandoning this site by 1886. Crane College and an orphanage for African American boys later utilized the buildings, but the efforts were short-lived. Fires, neglect and demolition took their toll, and by the mid-20th century all structures were gone and cattle owned by the Charles Klatte family grazed the hillside. Later archeological investigations and historical research provided evidence of the buildings, and the core of a campus that once included over 40 acres is now a park, commemorating Baylor University's historic ties to Independence and Windmill Hill. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 0.5 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 11 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 12 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Navasota — 16 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.

More markers nearby

• Baylor University for Boys — steps away
• General Sam Houston — steps away
• Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor (1793-1873) — steps away
• Home Built in 1845 by General Jerome B. Robertson — steps away