The Republic of Texas was less than ten years old when the frontier territory's Southern Baptists resolutely resolved to create a university "to meet the needs of all the ages to come." Today's Baylor University, prospering in its second century at its second home in Waco beside the Brazos River, is a monument to the faith of its founders and a success story to rival fiction. This is the first volume of Baylor's official in-depth history, covering the crucial and turbulent 1845-1886 era of the university's career at its birthplace.