In June 1943 – 65 years ago – Southwestern Medical School began operation with a faculty of 18, four classes of students, and a library of 70,000 volumes that was largely inherited from Baylor Medical School, which had moved to Houston the previous month. Southwestern’s first home was an empty junior high school building. In October 1943, it moved to a campus of prefabricated military-style barracks near Parkland Hospital, then located at the intersection of Oak Lawn Boulevard and Maple Avenue.
A brief history of UT Southwestern’s development is found on the campus Web site. For a more detailed history, see these books from the Library’s collection:

• From Rags to Riches: The Phenomenal Rise of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center of Dallas by Errol Friedberg, published in 2007. Call number: W 19 F911f 2007.
• UT Southwestern: Commemmorating the First Half-Century by George J. Race, published in 1998. Call number: WZ 23 U58 1998. This is a largely photographic history.
• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School: Medical Education in Dallas, 1900-1975 by John S. Chapman, published in 1976. Call number: W 19 U58c 1976.

Another source of campus history information is the Library’s UT Southwestern Archives. The Archives contain such items as medical school yearbooks, campus publications, photographs, and unpublished documents. For questions about the campus history or the Archives and its holdings, contact the Library’s Archivist, Bill Maina, by email or by phone at 214-648-2629.