Mount Carmel Center was the name of the
Branch DavidianThe Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists are a Protestant sect that originated in 1955 from a schism in the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists , a reform movement that began within the Seventh-day Adventist Church around 1930...
home outside of
WacoWaco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. The city has a 2008 estimated total population of 124,009. It is the 21st largest city by population in Texas, and 194th in the US...
,
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
led by
Benjamin RodenBenjamin Lloyd Roden was an American religious leader and the prime organizer of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Association....
and later
David KoreshDavid Koresh , born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. A 1993 raid by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the subsequent siege by the FBI ended with the burning of the Branch Davidian...
. Named after the
Biblical MountainMount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
in northern Israel, it was here that the infamous 1993
Waco SiegeThe Waco Siege began on February 28, 1993 when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located nine miles east-northeast of Waco, Texas. An exchange of gunfire resulted in the deaths...
occurred in which four
ATFThe Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a specialized federal law enforcement agency and regulatory organization within the United States Department of Justice...
agents and 80 Branch Davidians died. News reports about the siege called it the
Branch Davidian compound.
The name derives from a particular verse from the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
, on which the Davidians base their beliefs:
In 1935,
DavidianThe Davidian Seventh Day Adventists, or Shepherd's Rod Message, claims to be the up-shoot of the Seventh Day Adventists. The Davidians have considered themselves a part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church since about 1930 AD...
founder
Victor HouteffVictor Tasho Houteff was a religious reformer and author.Houteff was born in Raicovo, Bulgaria, and became a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. As a young man, he was engaged in the mercantile trade. In 1907, he and his brothers emigrated to the United States to escape a religious dispute...
established his headquarters near
Lake WacoLake Waco is a reservoir in McLennan County, Texas, which serves as the western border for the city of Waco. The dam is located on the Bosque River. The lake has 79,000 acre-feet of water and is currently run by the Army Corps of Engineers. Lake Waco was raised about 8 feet in 2005. This has...
, west of the town.
Mount Carmel Center was the name of the
Branch DavidianThe Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists are a Protestant sect that originated in 1955 from a schism in the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists , a reform movement that began within the Seventh-day Adventist Church around 1930...
home outside of
WacoWaco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. The city has a 2008 estimated total population of 124,009. It is the 21st largest city by population in Texas, and 194th in the US...
,
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
led by
Benjamin RodenBenjamin Lloyd Roden was an American religious leader and the prime organizer of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Association....
and later
David KoreshDavid Koresh , born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. A 1993 raid by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the subsequent siege by the FBI ended with the burning of the Branch Davidian...
. Named after the
Biblical MountainMount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
in northern Israel, it was here that the infamous 1993
Waco SiegeThe Waco Siege began on February 28, 1993 when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located nine miles east-northeast of Waco, Texas. An exchange of gunfire resulted in the deaths...
occurred in which four
ATFThe Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a specialized federal law enforcement agency and regulatory organization within the United States Department of Justice...
agents and 80 Branch Davidians died. News reports about the siege called it the
Branch Davidian compound.
Name
The name derives from a particular verse from the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
, on which the Davidians base their beliefs:
History
In 1935,
DavidianThe Davidian Seventh Day Adventists, or Shepherd's Rod Message, claims to be the up-shoot of the Seventh Day Adventists. The Davidians have considered themselves a part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church since about 1930 AD...
founder
Victor HouteffVictor Tasho Houteff was a religious reformer and author.Houteff was born in Raicovo, Bulgaria, and became a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. As a young man, he was engaged in the mercantile trade. In 1907, he and his brothers emigrated to the United States to escape a religious dispute...
established his headquarters near
Lake WacoLake Waco is a reservoir in McLennan County, Texas, which serves as the western border for the city of Waco. The dam is located on the Bosque River. The lake has 79,000 acre-feet of water and is currently run by the Army Corps of Engineers. Lake Waco was raised about 8 feet in 2005. This has...
, west of the town. After Houteff's death, his widow Florence began selling off parcels of the land, as the neighboring city of Waco began to expand around the edges of the Mount Carmel Community. In 1957, she sold off the last of the property, and bought a property in the countryside northeast of Waco, christened New Mt. Carmel. Today, Waco's Mt. Carmel Drive runs through the Old Mt. Carmel area, and nearby Charboneau and Hermanson Drives are named after key Davidian families.
In 1962, Florence Houteff announced her intention to disband the Davidian organization, with the assets to be sold off and the proceeds disbursed among her Executive Council. This arrangement was opposed by many members, some of whom enlisted the aid of the Branch Davidians. Most of the New Mt. Carmel property ended up in the hands of the EE Ranch, but the Branch Davidians retained a core around the administrative building.
The fragmentation of Mount Carmel caused a schism in the already permanently splintered Davidian Seventh Day Adventist Movement. Some post-Carmel Davidian Groups have also named their headquarters Mount Carmel Center and seek to carry on its past traditions. Davidians based in
Salem, South CarolinaSalem is a town in Oconee County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 126 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Salem is located at ....
use the name, as well as a group that broke away from them, in Mountaindale, New York. Some of the Mountaindale Davidians came to believe that Victor Houteff never wanted to abandon Old Mt. Carmel, and in the early 1990s moved back to Waco. They established themselves in a building on Mt. Carmel Drive, constructed by Houteff's Davidians. They are across the street from the Vanguard School, a prep school whose buildings were also originally built by the Davidians. Other Davidian Groups believe that Mount Carmel represented a doctrinal era in the
Davidian Seventh Day Adventist MovementThe Davidian Seventh Day Adventists, or Shepherd's Rod Message, claims to be the up-shoot of the Seventh Day Adventists. The Davidians have considered themselves a part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church since about 1930 AD...
, an era which is now past.
In 1998, three buildings at the former Branch Davidian compound were destroyed in a suspicious fire. They were the home of
Amo Bishop RodenAmo Paul Bishop Roden is the former wife of George Roden, a rival of David Koresh for leadership of the Branch Davidians. After the 1993 fire, she attracted notice by beginning a one-woman reoccupation of the sect's Mount Carmel property...
, wife of former Davidian leader
George RodenGeorge Roden was a leader of the Branch Davidian sect, a Seventh-day Adventist splinter group, and the former husband of Amo Bishop Roden. In 1987, he was evicted from the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas by his rival David Koresh...
, and two museums she used to record the groups history. It is important to note that there have been various sects and generations of communities that have resided on and/or used the property east of Waco on Double EE Ranch Road. Not all groups or individuals within these groups share the same religious theology or approach to spirituality. Of particular interest is how efforts to memorialize the events of 1993 on the property have been altered over the years since 1993.