On the afternoon of Feb. 11, 1922, a fire on the Baylor campus filled the clear skies over Waco with thick black smoke drawing students and townspeople to the site of the conflagration.

Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas, Baylor University celebrated its diamond anniversary and thirty-fifth year in Waco as the Twenties began to roar.  But the decade that started with so much hope for the post-World War I future would be remembered for three different tragedies.

The blaze broke out in the ...