Mount Carmel Center
| Mount Carmel Center | |
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The Mount Carmel Center during the Waco siege, with an M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle bringing down the roof of the gymnasium
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 Location of the Mount Carmel Center in Texas
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| Alternative names | Branch Davidian compound |
| General information | |
| Status | Destroyed |
| Town or city | McLennan County, Texas |
| Country | United States of America |
| Coordinates | 31°35′46″N 96°59′17″W / 31.596089°N 96.98804°W |
| Destroyed | April 19, 1993 |
New Mount Carmel Center was the name of the Branch Davidian home outside of Waco, Texas, United States, led by Benjamin Roden and later David Koresh. Named after the Biblical mountain in northern Israel, it was here that the Waco siege of 1993 occurred and the home burned, in which four ATF agents and 83 Branch Davidians were killed.
Some news reports about the siege referred to it as the "Branch Davidian compound". The name derives from a particular verse from the Bible, on which the Branch Davidians base their beliefs:
In 1935, Davidian founder Victor Houteff established the original Davidian headquarters, Mount Carmel Center, near Lake Waco, west of the town. After Houteff's death, and according to his wishes, 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 (3.81 km2) property in the countryside northeast of Waco, christened New Mount 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. 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 (310,000 m2) 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 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.
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