While currently a secular institution overall, the University of Redlands' roots go back to the founding of two other American Baptist institutions, California College in Oakland, and Los Angeles University. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake damaged the finances of California College, a Baptist commission began exploring the liquidation of both institutions to develop a new institution in Southern California. The Reverend Jasper Newton Field, a Baptist pastor at Redlands, persuaded the Redlands Board of Trade to propose a donation of at least $100,000 and for an interdenominational campus on land donated by a K.C. Wells. On June 27, 1907 the Commission voted in favor of the Redlands proposal.