Furman was founded in 1826 as a men's academy and theological institute, in Edgefield, South Carolina. The original school building
from that campus resides on the Greenville campus today. In 1933, students from the
Greenville Women's College began attending classes with Furman students. Shortly thereafter, the two schools merged to form the
present institution.In the late 1950s, Furman began construction on its new campus, just five miles north of downtown Greenville. Academic
buildings and student residences rose to skirt a 30 acre (0.1 km²) lake, centerpiece of the 750 acre (3 km²) wooded campus. The
lakeside Belltower, which figures highly in school insignias, was installed a bit later. It is a replica of a bell tower that
once existed on the men's campus in downtown Greenville. Today, the campus is anchored by its newly expanded 128,000 square foot
(12,000 m²) library.Furman, an independent liberal arts university, was affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention until 1992.