Old Main remains the focal point of the Blinn College campus, its red brick Mission Revival style setting the pace for later development of buildings in complementary styles and materials. The Southern German Conference of the Methodist Church established the college in 1883. For many years, the German language served the institution. In the 1960s, the campus grew substantially as it offered course work to a larger region, operating as a community college.
Around the corner from Old Main is the Marie Heineke Gymnasium, a handsome Moderne building from 1941 clad in limestone and petrified wood. Fred Heineke contributed $2,000 toward the local match for the WPA-funded project and the building is named in honor of his mother. The 1968 W. L. Moody Library nearby has an arcaded limestone portico juxtaposed onto a red brick building plane and was designed by Edward F. Hildebrandt, who also designed the addition of 1981.