MOUNT CARMEL CENTER

'Mount Carmel Center' was the name of the Branch Davidian home outside of Waco, Texas led by Benjamin Roden and later David Koresh. Named after the Biblical Mountain in northern Israel, it was here that the infamous 1993 Waco Siege occurred in which four ATF agents and 82 Branch Davidians died. News reports about the siege called it the 'Branch Davidian compound'.

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History

Name

History

In 1935, Davidian founder Victor Houteff established his headquarters near Lake Waco, 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 941-acre 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 77 acres 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 name their headquarters Mount Carmel Center and seek to carry on its past traditions. Davidians based in Salem, South Carolina 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 Movement, an era which is now past.

Name

The name derives from a particular verse from the Bible, on which the Davidians base their beliefs: