The Childers Classical Institute, supported by the Church of Christ and offering primary- and secondary-level classes, received its first students in 1906 on a site west of Abilene. Accreditation as a junior college came in 1914 and as a four-year college in 1919. In 1920 the institution’s name was changed to Abilene Christian College. With no room for growth at the original location, a site in northeast Abilene was acquired in 1927, and an administration building, two dormitories, an education building, a dining hall, a president’s house, and a gymnasium and auditorium were constructed. After hard financial times during the 1930s and decreased enrollment, the 1950s brought rapid growth, with salvaged military barracks used for student housing.
Hardin Administration Building (1929, William J. Nichol and George F. Campbell) is a three-story, U-shaped building framing an ample forecourt. A monumental stairway leads up to a portico supported on colossal Ionic columns with a full entablature above. The body of the building and the wings are ordered with a rusticated first floor and second and third floors united with closely spaced Ionic pilasters separated by paired windows. Although part of Nichol and Campbell’s scheme, the wings were not constructed until the 1950s.
The immense University Church of Christ (1952, Wilson and Patterson) complements the materiality and coloration of the university’s older buildings but has Italian Romanesque detailing. The Williams Performing Arts Center (2003, Keating/Khang and Tittle Luther Partnership) defines the eastern edge of campus with its long, low profile. It is composed of two units clad with patterned brick and joined by a continuous roof supported on precast concrete tees. The wedge-shaped roof above the theater rises like a cliff clad in gray metal siding. The Onstead-Packer Biblical Studies Building and its minaret-like, 150-foot-tall Tower of Light (1988, Tittle Luther Loving Partnership) is a 1960s-style New Formalist extravaganza that loses none of its flair for having been built in the 1980s.