John Elbridge Hines

The seminary Hines founded started small. Classes began on September 1, 1951, under the auspices of the Austin Presbyterian seminary, in a leased house near the university where the Rev. Gray M. Blandy taught Bible. Blandy became dean; two other priests, from College Station and Mexia, commuted to teach. A bequest from Ann Laird of Kilgore added faculty, and the library of the closed De Lancy Divinity School of Buffalo came as a gift. Dr. and Mrs. Ernest Villavaso and Frederick Duncalf gave five acres, building began in 1954, and Christ Chapel followed in 1960.

What the plaque says

John Elbridge Hines (October 3, 1910 - July 19, 1997) John E. Hines was born in Seneca, South Carolina. He attended the University of the South (Sewanee, Tennessee) in Virginia Theological Seminary, where he observed social troubles caused by the Great Depression in 1933. Hines became an assistant director in St. Louis, Missouri; there he continued to develop his ministry, which aimed to address social ills. While in St. Louis, Hines met Helen Orwig (1910-1996), whom he married in 1935. The 2 reared 5 children. In 1937, Hines became director of a church in Augusta, Georgia, and in 1941, he was named Director of Christ Church (later Christ Church Cathedral) in Houston. In 1945, Hines became Bishop Coadjutor and moved his family to Austin; during his term, he spoke in favor of equality for women and African-Americans in the church. In 1955, Hines returned to Houston and became the 4th Bishop of Texas, continuing to focus on social justice. In 1965 Hines was installed as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. He built many institutions, including the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest and Saint Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin, and called for change in church priorities, proposing the general convention special program (GCSP), a plan to offer financial assistance to minority groups organized for self-determination. The GCSP led many parishes to initiate social outreach ministries. In addition, Hines led the movement for corporate divestment in South Africa, playing a vital role in applying financial pressure to end apartheid. However, some were critical of the Bishop's reforms. Hines retired in 1974, moving with Helen to North Carolina; they returned to Austin in 1993. Hines died in 1997, though his impact continues to be felt in Texas, and throughout the nation and the world. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• LBJ Presidential Library — 0.5 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.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.8 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.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 1.0 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 — 1.4 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 — 0.3 mi
• Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Campus — 0.3 mi
• Rebecca Kilgore Stuart Red — 0.3 mi
• Site of Texas Wesleyan College — 0.4 mi