Holmes Bible College actually dates its beginning to a ten day Bible institute conducted on top of Paris Mountain, near Greenville, S.C. in 1896. The institute opened on July 29. The first class was held in a tent at 6:30 a.m., Wednesday. The class was led by Rev. N.J. Holmes, formerly a lawyer from Laurens, S.C., and at that time a Presbyterian minister. He read the twenty-seventh Psalm and so opened the institute.

There were only 15 members of that institute, but for ten days they met in classes from 6:30 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. and discussed such subjects as "Prayer," "Have I Learned to Pray?" "God in His Being, as Our God and Our Father," "Is God My Father?" and "The Gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church."The next record we have of the school is in an account of the term opening October 1, 1898.

This is generally considered the first term of Holmes Bible College, which then operated under the name Altamont Bible and Missionary Institute. The term ended June 16, 1899, at which time it was decided to conduct the school in summer and take the vacation in winter "so as to avoid the cold winter weather, and take advantage of the delightful climate in summer on the mountain."

So, April of the year 1900 was set for the opening of the next term.The Bible and missionary courses were the main fields of study in the school at that time. However, there was a course in English, "and such other preparatory branches" as were considered necessary to help those "in the Bible study and work who had no opportunity for such studies."The board was fixed at $9.00 a month, or as the founder explained, "as low as it is safe to put it to lower expenses, as there is no tuition fee charged.

"The institute was later moved to Atlanta, GA. It operated in Atlanta under the name "The Bible and Missionary Institute of Atlanta" from January 1901 to October 1903.

Then it was moved to Columbia, S.C. where it was housed in the Oliver Gospel Mission Building for two years ( October 1903 to June 1905).

After that, it was moved back to its birth place on the top of Paris Mountain where it resumed its old name, "The Altamont Bible and Missionary Institute."

Rev. N. J. Holmes wrote:"In the winter of 1915, the trustees of the Institute felt that it would be better for the school to be located in the city, and accordingly, it was removed to the corner of Buncombe Street and Briggs Avenue, Greenville, S.C."

The Institute was regularly chartered by the laws of the State of South Carolina; first, on the ninth of January, 1911, as the Altamont Bible and Missionary Institute; then on the twenty-ninth of March 1916, by amended charter, as the Holmes Bible and Missionary Institute."When the school was moved to the present site in Greenville the name was changed by the Board of Trustees to The Holmes Bible and Missionary Institute in honor of its founder.

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees on May 27, 1942, the name was changed to Holmes College of Theology and Missions. In February of 1958 the Board of Trustees amended the charter and changed the name to Holmes Theological Seminary. In recognition of the true nature of the Institution, in 1979, the school became known as Holmes College of the Bible and in 1998 the Board of Trustees voted to amend the name to Holmes Bible College.Mr. Holmes remained at the head of the school until his death in 1919, at which time his appointed successor, Paul F. Beacham, assumed the leadership of Holmes until his death on Feb. 13, 1978, when he was 89. Kenneth D. Benson succeeded Beacham, serving until 1996.

Dr. Richard Waters was named President of the College in 1996, and continues in that role today.

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