The roots of the original Southern Nazarene University are primarily in an orphanage of downtown Oklahoma City, founded by Miss Mattie Mallory. Mallory used her inheritance to buy property north of the city, which she named Beulah Heights, and relocated the orphanage there. Then, in 1906, the Beulah Heights Academy and Bible School opened. In 1909, the school was renamed Oklahoma Holiness College and new property was purchased to the west of Oklahoma City at Bethany. That same year the surrounding holiness community became Nazarene and, as its church base swelled, the school’s financial problems "proved less threatening than those at other institutions". The school eventually changed its name in 1918 to Oklahoma Nazarene College, when the first Nazarene Educational Regions were established.