Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is one of the oldest universities in Texas and was one of the first educational institutions west of the Mississippi River. The university is located in the central part of the state of Texas, an hour and a half south of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and an hour and a half north of Austin, the state capital. Its main 800 plus acre campus is located to the east of the historic area of downtown Waco and the major freeway I-35 on the banks of the Brazos river. Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

In 1841, 35 delegates to the Union Baptist Association meeting voted to adopt the suggestion of Reverend William Milton Tryon and R.E.B. Baylor to establish a Baptist university in Texas, then a self-declared republic still claimed by Mexico. Baylor, a Texas district judge and onetime U.S. Congressman and soldier from Alabama, became the school's namesake.

In the fall of 1844, the Texas Baptist Education Society petitioned the Congress of the Republic of Texas to charter a Baptist university. Republic President Anson Jones signed the Act of Congress on February 1, 1845, officially establishing Baylor University. The founders built the original university campus in Independence, Texas. Reverend James Huckins, who had been the first Southern Baptist missionary to Texas, was Baylor's first full-time fund-raiser. He is considered the third founding father of the university. Although these three men are credited as being the founders of the university, many others worked to see the first university established in Texas and thus they were awarded Baylor's Founders Medal. The famous Texas revolutionary war leader and hero Sam Houston gave the first $5,000 donation to start the University. In 1854, Houston was also baptized by the Rev. Rufus Columbus Burleson, future Baylor President, in the Brazos River.