page_title: Lindenwood University
section_title: Founding and early history
hierarchical_section_title: Lindenwood University / History / Founding and early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Older wooded part of campus. Lindenwood University
context_page_description: Lindenwood University is a private liberal arts university in Saint Charles, Missouri. Founded in 1827 by George Champlin Sibley and Mary Easton Sibley as The Lindenwood School for Girls, it is the second-oldest higher-education institution west of the Mississippi River.
  Lindenwood offers undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees through nine colleges and schools. Its enrollment was 8,389 students in 2019. The 500-acre main academic and residential campus is located 24 miles northwest of St. Louis, Missouri, in St. Charles. The university operates a satellite campus in Belleville, Illinois, known as Lindenwood University–Belleville.
  The university offers a number of extracurricular activities to its students, including athletics, honor societies, clubs, and student organizations, as well as fraternities and sororities. Alumni and former students have gone on to prominent careers in government, business, science, medicine, education, sports, and entertainment. Lindenwood's athletic teams primarily compete at the NCAA Division II level with several sports competing at the NCAA Division I level.
context_section_description: Lindenwood University traces its roots back to George Champlin Sibley, an early 19th-century American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and politician, and his wife Mary Easton Sibley, an educator. In 1808, Acting Governor and friend Frederick Bates promoted Sibley to the position of chief factor at Fort Osage in western Missouri, near present-day Kansas City, Missouri. While at Fort Osage, Sibley immediately set to work creating relationships with the neighboring Osage tribes. He also met Mary Easton, the daughter of Rufus Easton, a prominent St. Louis attorney and Missouri's second Attorney General. The couple were married in 1815. During the Sibleys' time at Fort Osage, Mary began teaching the children at the fort.
  In 1813, Sibley opened a temporary trading post at Fort Sibley, now known as the town of Arrow Rock, Missouri, which remained in operation until 1822. After the trading post shut down, George and Mary remained at Fort Osage, with George serving as postmaster until the fort closed in 1825. The couple then settled in St. Charles, where Mary began teaching family members and later, in 1827, other young women from the community . Lindenwood University is now considered the second-oldest higher-education institution west of the Mississippi River, after Saint Louis University, as well as the first women's college west of the Mississippi. In 1829, the Sibleys purchased 280 acres (113.3 ha) of land, known as the "Linden Wood" because of the numerous linden trees. The Sibleys borrowed money and began clearing the overgrown property to convert it into a farm with livestock brought from Fort Osage. They completed construction of a cabin and outhouses and moved into Linden Wood in December 1829. As the work on Linden Wood continued, the idea of opening a boarding school evolved.
  Mary Sibley took in students within a year of moving into the cabin. Her 12-year-old sister, Alby, became the first student at Linden Wood in the fall of 1830. A year later, the first two paying students arrived; in early 1832, the Sibleys made plans to expand the cabin to create a boarding school for women to over a dozen students During the 1830s, the school was known as The Boarding School for Young Ladies at Linden Wood, Missouri. Mary took charge of the boarding school and developed a strict curriculum that included literature, grammar, writing, spelling, and diction. French, music and piano, landscape painting, flower painting and needle work were available for an additional fee. The school was one of the first to require physical education, which included walking and dancing.
  By the 1840s, the boarding school had grown to 30 students. As the enrollment expanded, the Sibleys added new rooms to the cabin. The continued improvements created a financial strain on the school and Mary Sibley traveled to the East Coast to solicit additional funding. In the early 1850s, the school was on the brink of closing when the Sibleys offered the property to the Presbyterian Church. In 1853, the school was incorporated by special act of the Missouri Legislature and became known as the Lindenwood College for Women. The newly chartered college was placed under the control of 15 directors appointed by the Presbytery of St. Louis. On July 4, 1856, the cornerstone was laid for a new permanent brick building to replace the original log cabins. The new building, Sibley Hall, was completed in July 1857, and at the time contained the entire school. This event marked the beginning of a new era of significant growth for Lindenwood.
  George Sibley died in 1863. Following his death, the college charter was amended in 1870 to provide that the appointment of directors for the management of the college would be under the control of the Synod of Missouri instead of the Presbytery of St. Louis. A south wing was added to Sibley Hall in 1881 and a north wing in 1886. The school began expanding in the early 20th century with four new buildings constructed between 1900 and 1920.
  In 1913, the school was accredited as a junior college by the North Central Association. Lindenwood r
caption: Tree-lined entrance in the historic part of the Lindenwood University campus
exif: {}