A Birmingham college survived two sales on the courthouse steps: How’s it doing now?

Samford University, in its early days when it was known as Howard College, was put up for auction on the courthouse steps twice, once in Perry County and once in Jefferson County when it moved to Birmingham.

Both times, it was saved by small contingents of supporters driven by faith to keep it alive. In Marion and again in East Lake, it survived on shoestring budgets, at times with dilapidated buildings and at times with no facilities at all.

“It just seemed to ride one financial and cultural storm after another,” said Samford University historian Jonathan Bass, author of a new history of the school.

“The school limps along with no endowment (it was up to $88.36 in 1897). At times, the faculty pay fluctuates wildly and at times the president will pay faculty out of his own pockets.”

Bass documents an amazing resilience for the school that was given up for dead on multiple occasions but survived a fire that destroyed its only building, then the Civil War, financial panics and a Depression to finally grind its way to stability and prosperity.

“From Every Strong Wind That Blows,” published this month by LSU Press, demonstrates how the idea of Howard College and its enduring spiritual legacy coalesced into the modern Samford University.

Its complicated history was hard to piece together.

“It took about a dozen years,” Bass said of his work on the history. “One of the things that took so long with the book is the fact that Samford had moved multiple times, buildings had been burned, materials had been discarded, and so it took a lot of effort to really re-construct the history of Howard College and Samford before you could even start writing it.”

Howard College was founded in 1841 in Marion, moved to Birmingham’s East Lake neighborhood in 1887, moved to Homewood in 1957 and was renamed Samford University in 1965.

“The history of Howard College is the history of the South and the history of Alabama,” Bass said.

“You can trace it from its frontier days in Marion, Alabama, to the old South of slavery, cotton and plantations, to the Civil War, to Reconstruction, to the New South period, when Howard College moves from Marion to its new home in East Lake, and then in 1957, Howard, now Samford University, moves and becomes part of the Sun Belt suburban South.”

Samford University President Beck Taylor has been reading the book and making notes in the margins. He’s as amazed as anybody.

“I had a general understanding of the history of Howard and Samford, but not to this level of detail,” Taylor said. “Institutions that are enduring, like Samford University, celebrating 182 years this year, we deserve good histories of our institutions, in part because we want to celebrate the faithfulness and the hard work of so many who came before who had a vision for a place like Howard and Samford.”

Samford hit a record enrollment of 5,791 in the fall of 2023, but it wasn’t always like this.

“For many years, Howard was struggling; it was a struggling institution,” Taylor said. “There would have been a lot of instances throughout Samford and Howard College’s history to abandon that mission. Some very strong leaders held onto that Christ-centeredness.”

In 1884, the Perry County sheriff stood on the courthouse steps and auctioned off Howard College, including land, buildings and the library. Two trustees bought it for $1,080 and transferred ownership to the State Baptist Convention.

Howard College was lured from the Black Belt to Birmingham in 1887 on the promise of a gift of land in East Lake and financial backing. The promised funding never came. The first years in East Lake, the campus was basically a campground, with no buildings.

“In 1887, nobody wants to be president of Howard College,” Bass said. “They convinced a pastor, Benjamin Franklin Riley of Livingston, to take it. He was young enough that when the college goes under, he can find another job.”

By the summer of 1896, Howard College was scheduled to be sold off on the steps of the Jefferson County Courthouse.

A Jewish banker, Burghard Steiner, stepped in to stop the sale, personally vouching for the mortgage. Baptist preachers then traveled the state and raised $8,000 that summer to save the college.

A frugal new college chairman, math professor A.D. Smith, planted a garden on campus, raised, milked and butchered cows, hunted wild turkeys in the woods near the East Lake campus, cooked meals in the dining hall and taught math as he countered bad publicity about the debt, touted the “moral security” of East Lake and got 166 students to enroll for 1896-97.

“Howard College never spent too much money because they didn’t have any money to spend,” Bass said.

By 1899, First Baptist of Birmingham Pastor Baron D. Gray and other Baptist pastors traveled the state, vigorously raising funds. The debt was paid off. Enrollment rose in the early 1900s and the school was able to weather the Depression and World War II.

“Howard College and then later Samford University did not go the route that you see a lot of other Baptist schools in the Southern United States go, it very much held onto its Christian identity and its Christian mission,” Bass said. “I think that’s made a real difference in the staying power of Howard College, Samford University.”

When the college moved to Homewood, the buildings in East Lake were in such dilapidated condition, they were all torn down, Bass said. Its mission remained steady.

“The liberal arts faculty were the keepers of the Christian identity,” Bass said. “At a place like Howard College, you could not separate the Christian identity from the liberal arts.”

Samford has repeatedly set new enrollment records and in 2022 received a gift of $100 million, the largest single gift ever made by a donor to a university in Alabama.

The gift was funded by the estate of Marvin Mann, a 1954 graduate of what was then known as Howard College. Mann had been founding CEO of Lexmark, an IBM spinoff company.

The $100 million was added to Samford University’s endowment and the earnings provide nearly $4 million in scholarships annually. The gift took the Samford endowment from $370 million up to $470 million.

Despite its change in fortunes, the university remains steadfast in direction, Bass said.

“At the core, Samford University is still emphasizing the same things they would have in the 19th Century,” Bass said. “That’s what really appeals to a lot of parents and prospective students, and that is the Christian mission and Christian identity. Every student is going to be deeply immersed in the Christian intellectual traditions.”