Wake Forest, the town vs. Wake Forest, the university: the complete confusion-clearing guide

Every resident of this town eventually fields the question, usually from a visitor squinting at a map: wait, Wake Forest University isn't in Wake Forest? Correct. The university sits a hundred miles west in Winston-Salem, the town that raised it sits right here, and the story of how they separated is one of the stranger divorces in American higher education, complete with a fortune, a fleet of moving vans, and graduates crying on the lawn. Here's the whole thing, told properly.

1834: a college is born in a farmhouse

The story starts with Dr. Calvin Jones, a remarkable figure even by frontier standards: physician, a founder of the North Carolina Medical Society, major general in the War of 1812, Masonic Grand Master, and a University of North Carolina trustee for three decades. In 1832 he sold his 615-acre plantation, in the area already called the Forest of Wake, to the Baptist State Convention. On February 3, 1834, Wake Forest Institute opened inside his former house: the first president, Samuel Wait, sixteen students, the dwelling serving as residence and classrooms, the carriage house as chapel, and seven former slave cabins pressed into service as dormitories, a plain fact of the founding worth stating plainly. The Institute became Wake Forest College in 1838, and the town that grew around it took the college's name. For the next 122 years, the college was the sun the community orbited, adding a law school in 1894, a medical school in 1902, and by mid-century a student body over 2,000. Its full campus story lives in our walking guide to the old campus, and its athletic golden age, Arnold Palmer included, in when the champions lived here.

1946: the offer that changed two towns

The turning point was money, specifically Reynolds tobacco money. In 1946 the trustees of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation made Wake Forest College an offer: generous, ongoing funding, on the condition that the college move to Winston-Salem. The logic was hard to refuse from the college's side of the table:

• A real endowment for the first time in its long, perpetually underfunded history.
• Escape from direct competition with NC State, UNC and Duke for students and support in the same corner of the state.
• A home in one of North Carolina's largest cities instead of a very small town, standing nearly alone among major institutions in the western Piedmont.

The Baptist State Convention accepted. Construction began in Winston-Salem in 1951, and the countdown started on the only hometown the college had ever known.

May 21, 1956: the day the moving vans came

The end arrived with theatrical cruelty. On the morning of May 21, 1956, graduation exercises filled the campus chapel, the final commencement on the original grounds. While the ceremony ran inside, a fleet of moving vans, summoned from across North Carolina and beyond, rolled up outside. The new graduates processed out, diplomas under arm, and came face to face with the movers arriving to pack up their college. One witness's summary has outlived every official account: they just sat on the ground and bawled. The college relocated that year, became Wake Forest University in 1967, and built its new landmark, a chapel named for Samuel Wait, as the first structure on the Winston-Salem campus. The name traveled; the ground stayed.

What the town kept

The campus didn't empty. The Southern Baptist Convention had purchased the grounds for $1.6 million, sharing them with the college until the move, and in 1956 Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary took full possession, which is why the magnolia-lined quad, the stone wall and the arch still hold classes today. The town kept more than buildings:

• The founding house itself, saved from demolition by the Garden Club in 1956, moved three blocks, and reborn as the Wake Forest Historical Museum, covered in our museum visiting guide.
• The golf course the students built their legends on, still public at Paschal Golf Club, per the golfer's guide.
• The name, the street grid, the Faculty Avenue houses professors once filled, and a downtown whose whole shape the college explains, per the short history of downtown.
• An ongoing relationship: the museum operates in partnership with the university, and Winston-Salem's Demon Deacons still make the pilgrimage back to the birthplace.

How to answer the question at a party

The short version, for the next time a visitor asks: the college was founded here in 1834 in a farmhouse, the town grew around it and took its name, the Reynolds Foundation paid it to move to Winston-Salem, and it left in 1956 with the vans literally waiting outside graduation. The seminary bought the campus, the town kept the name and the history, and both parties turned out fine, though only one of them got the basketball team. Visitors can walk the whole story in an afternoon: the old campus, the museum, and the markers between them, with the railroad guide explaining the other half of how this town came to be. The university may live in Winston-Salem, but the birth certificate is on file here, and this town has never let anyone forget it.

Frequently asked questions

Is Wake Forest University in Wake Forest, NC?

No. The university was founded in the town in 1834 but moved to Winston-Salem in 1956, funded by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. The original campus is now Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Why did Wake Forest University leave Wake Forest?

A 1946 Reynolds Foundation offer of major, ongoing funding required relocating to Winston-Salem, giving the perpetually underfunded college a real endowment, a big-city home and distance from NC State, UNC and Duke.

When did Wake Forest move to Winston-Salem?

The move completed in 1956, with the final hometown graduation on May 21, 1956, held as moving vans arrived on campus. The college became Wake Forest University in 1967.

What happened to the original Wake Forest campus?

The Southern Baptist Convention bought it for $1.6 million, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has occupied it since 1956. The founding-era Calvin Jones House was saved and is now the free Wake Forest Historical Museum.