The New Baptist University Opens Its Doors
After securing land and a $18,000 endowment, the newly constructed Seattle University prepares to receive its first students in the city's southern suburbs.
The story, cleaned up
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It will be a surprise to many, even those of the Baptist faith, to learn that the school of that denomination, the Seattle University, will be ready to receive and instruct its first pupils on Monday of next week. Such is the fact, however, as the buildings of the school near Columbia, on the Rainier avenue electric line, are now nearly ready for occupancy. By pledging a school during the present year, the institution received gifts of land amounting to about 100 acres and a cash subscription of $18,000, one-fourth of which is payable before the end of 1892. Superintendent Weed has been pushing the work of construction on a building 45x60 feet in size, with an addition 30x60, two stories high with a basement. The main building contains a chapel, school rooms, a parlor, and eleven dormitories. The rear building contains a kitchen and dining room on the first floor and eight dormitories on the second, making twenty-five rooms in total. A competent corps of teachers has been secured and will commence work September 19. Rev. D. J. Pierce has been elected principal and has already moved into the university building. The school will offer preparatory, classical, scientific, English, and business courses. Board in the dormitory will not exceed $2.50 per week.
“Their silence was not that of idleness, however, for they were hard at work complying with the terms of their subsidy.”
This early attempt to establish a private university in the Rainier Valley reflects the late 19th-century boom-time practice of using land donations to anchor new institutions in undeveloped city outskirts. Today, the Rainier Valley remains a hub of civic development and transit, though the dream of a large private Baptist university there was eventually superseded by other educational trajectories.
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