Virginia Intermont College was founded in 1884 by Reverend J.R. Harrison, a local Baptist minister who wanted to establish a school for the higher education of women. Educating women remained a radical idea in the early 1880s but became a reality as the doors opened with three teachers and 13 students, as Southwest Virginia Institute in Glade Spring, Virginia. In 1891, the College moved to Bristol to the current location atop the hill on Moore Street, where the original buildings still stand as the Administration, West and Main Halls and are listed as a historic landmark.