Blue Mountain Female Institute was founded by former Confederate General Mark Perrin Lowrey (1828-1885) in 1873.  Lowrey was known as the “Preacher General” during the War, due to his religious background and his pre-war profession as a Southern Baptist preacher.  Lowrey believed that providing an education for women was crucial to the post-war recovery of the South, and opened the college along with his daughters, Modena and Margaret.  Between 1873 and 1960, Lowrey, his sons and his grandson ran the college.  The college was independently-owned until 1920, when the Mississippi Baptist Convention gained control.  In 2005, the College became fully co-educational and all the programs at the school were available to men.

The original frame buildings on the campus were destroyed by fire in the early 1900s.  Many of the existing buildings were built in the Colonial Revival style between 1908 and 1950.  The Lowrey Memorial Baptist Church was built in 1908 in the Eclectic and Colonial Revival styles.  The Lowrey Administration Building, built in 1928, dominates the campus.  Guyton Library was built later, in 1957, in the Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie School style.

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