After efforts to relocate a Methodist school to Rusk fell through, the community convinced the Cherokee Baptist Association to establish a school on 12.2 acres donated by local resident Georgiana Bonner. Chartered in 1894, the East Texas Baptist Institute was housed in a grand 3-story structure and offered classes from first grade through junior college. Renamed Rusk Academy of Industrial Arts in 1907 and Rusk College in 1919, the six-building campus was closed in 1928. In 1937 the main building was razed and its cornerstone later put on display at the First Baptist Church.