Baylor School will officially launch a year-long celebration on Monday, marking the occasion when the college preparatory school moved to its current location on a hill overlooking the Tennessee River. The “100 Years on the Hill” event will include a keynote speech at 9:30 a.m. by Buddhist practitioner Kittisaro (Randy Weinberg), who was a Mid-South state wrestling champion and valedictorian for the class of 1970.
The senior class will then process to Lupton Circle with Headmaster Scott Wilson, where class leaders will bury a time capsule at the center of campus less than 25 feet from where the original cornerstone is located. Among the time capsule contents are school publications, the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce Resource and Relocation Guide, school uniforms, an object created by the school’s 3-D printer, various photographs, and a letter from the class of 2015 to the class of 2115.
The event will conclude at approximately 11:15 a.m., and a similar ceremony will be repeated for Middle School students from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.
Founded in 1893, Baylor began classes in downtown Chattanooga as the Baylor University School. As the story is told in Castle on the Cliff, by John Longwith, Professor John Roy Baylor was riding the streetcar to Signal Mountain, when he stopped at the Williams Island Station near the Tennessee River, walked up the rise known as Locust Hill, and determined that this would be the new location for his school. According to a prospectus printed in the Chattanooga Times on Nov. 24, 1914, the property was “about 35 acres bounded by the Tennessee River, Mountain Creek, Signal Mountain Railway, and county road leading to Williams Island Ferry.”
During the dedication ceremony of Lupton Hall, (funded by John Thomas Lupton at a cost of about $30,000) on April 5, 1915, a copper box was deposited in the cornerstone with contents that included photographs, school publications, and U.S. coins. Classes began later that fall with 67 boys enrolled in grades 9-12. Today, Baylor’s campus is 690 acres with a student enrollment of 1,025 boys and girls in grades 6-12.