The Texas Collection

The collection's first curator was a woman. According to Baylor's exhibit on its history, Aleph Tanner was named curator of the Texas History Library and professor of Texas history after Dr. Aynesworth's gift, and her course is described as the first university-level Texas history class in the state. The Handbook of Texas adds that Aynesworth, a Waco surgeon from 1903, served as a University of Texas regent from 1933 to 1944 and helped that university's library acquire Latin American and Texas collections.

What the plaque says

The Texas Collection Established in 1923 when Dr. Kenneth Hazen Aynesworth donated books to Baylor University, the Texas Collection is a library and archives research center holding a vast compilation of materials about Texas. Dr. Aynesworth (1873-1944) was born in Florence (Williamson Co.) and attended Baylor before graduating from the University of Texas medical school in Galveston. Dr. Aynesworth opened a general surgery practice in Waco and served in numerous community, vocational and scholarly organizations. He was also an avid collector of materials about Texas. Worried that his collection could perish in the event of a house fire, Dr. Aynesworth donated approximately one thousand volumes to Baylor University in 1923. He soon donated a further one thousand volumes, and three thousand pamphlets and documents to Baylor. The donations expanded what was then a small section in Carroll Library containing books about Texas. Baylor staff sorted, organized, catalogued and assessed the new materials and soon, an entire room on the second floor of Carroll Library held the collection. The room also became the meeting place for Baylor's first course in Texas history, one of the first college-level Texas history classes taught at a university. The collection continued to expand throughout the years. In 1939, it was moved to Pat Neff Hall. In 1955, it returned to the Carroll Library, now on the third floor. In 1968, the materials moved into a larger area on the second floor. In 1994, after a renovation of Carroll Library, the extensive collection moved to an area specifically designed for it. Today, the Texas Collection continues to serve faculty, students, scholars and others as a world-class center of research on Texana topics. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — steps away
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 0.7 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 0.9 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 1.2 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Carroll Library — steps away
• Dr. David Richard Wallace — steps away
• Burleson Quadrangle — steps away
• Governor Patrick Morris Neff — steps away