Celebrating 50 Years

The Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary purchased 148 acres of prime Marin County real estate in 1953. The land—a dairy farm once considered as a location for the United Nations—is on Strawberry Point (at the Seminary Drive exit from Highway 101, a Mill Valley address) and now serves as the seminary’s Northern California campus. “It took six years of planning and construction,” notes Phyllis Evans, GGBTS’s director of communications. “Then in 1959, exactly 50 years ago this fall, our doors were opened to students.” With an enrollment of over 300 (all graduate students), the local campus is one of five in the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary system. “Since 1944, the seminary has sent out more than 7,000 graduates,” adds Evans, “making ours the 10th largest seminary in the United States.”