Cone-Bottoms Hall, home to the Grant Administration Center, is the oldest building on campusOuachita's Student Village residence halls are connected to the main campus via Heflin Plaza, a walkway that bridges the campus ravine
Ouachita Baptist University was founded as Ouachita Baptist College on September 6, 1886,[3] and has operated continually since that date. It was originally located on the campus of Ouachita Baptist High School.[citation needed] Its current location is on the former campus of the Arkansas School for the Blind, which relocated to Little Rock.[citation needed]
The first president was J. W. Conger, who was elected to the post on June 22, 1886.[citation needed] The OBU Board of Trustees unanimously elected Dr. Ben Sells, former vice president for university advancement at Taylor University, as the sixteenth president of Ouachita Baptist University on April 7, 2016. Those who have served as president include J. W. Conger (1886–1907), Henry Simms Hartzog (1907–1911), R. G. Bowers (1911–1913), Samuel Young Jameson (1913–1916), Charles Ernest Dicken (1916–1926), Arthur B. Hill (1926–1929), Charles D. Johnson (1929–1933), James R. Grant (1933–1949), Seaford Eubanks (1949–1951), Harold A. Haswell (1952–1953), Ralph Arloe Phelps Jr. (1953–1969), Daniel R. Grant (1970–1988), Ben M. Elrod (1988–1998), Andrew Westmoreland (1998–2006) and Rex Horne (2006–2015). [4]
In 1965 the college changed its name to Ouachita Baptist University.[3]
In 2010, Ouachita Baptist was the first university in Arkansas to offer an NCAA wrestling program. Dallas Smith, a four-time All-American, earned the program's first national title at the NCAA Division II National Championships in 2015.[11]
