Southwest Baptist University

Southwest Baptist University is a private institute of higher education affiliated with the Missouri Baptist Convention, which is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2003 there were approximately 3,600 students attending at one of SBU's four Missouri, United States campuses, located in the state towns of Bolivar, Mountain View, Salem and Springfield. Abner S. Ingman and James R. Maupin founded Southwest Baptist College in 1878 in Lebanon, Missouri. The Lebanon campus originally had an enrollment of 60 students and six faculty. The college lasted one year before the city decided they... no longer wanted it. When news got out that the college would be moving, the communities of Aurora, Monett, and Bolivar in southwest Missouri attempted to attract the college. In 1879, the state of Missouri chartered the school and it moved to Bolivar, Missouri. The college went through many financial difficulties in the early part of the Twentieth Century. The college remained closed from 1910-1913 due to a fire that destroyed the entire campus, until Missouri Baptists and area supporters helped it open again as a two-year junior college. On June 1, 1910, at 11:00 am.
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