Remembering SWAU’s First New Year's Day

KEENE, TEX. – Just as families cherish stories passed down through generations, our university holds its own cherished memories—moments of struggle, hope and triumph. 

On New Year’s Day of 1893, Southwestern Adventist University was nothing more than a promise and a few tents pitched on untamed land. Families arrived with little more than faith and determination, their children by their sides, ready to start anew in a place with no buildings, only scrub oaks and winding cow paths.

The Woodall family (top photo), along with the Atwood and French families, traveled 100 miles by covered wagon for nine days to arrive in Keene, Tex. Writing about that day in a 1929 article titled “Keene Pioneer Recalls First New Year's Day,” A.M. Woodall said, "It meant much for the early believers to leave their homes and come and locate in this wild, barren place, but they believed that the Lord was leading them."

The sacrifices those early settlers made were significant. They left behind the familiar to build a future grounded in faith. Their first week of school, held in a hastily constructed building (bottom photo), marked the beginning of a journey that would lead to the thriving campus we know today.

These stories of our heritage remind us that the strength of our present is rooted in the sacrifices of those whom we follow.

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