Olivet Nazarene University (ONU) is a Christian institution of higher education located in the Kankakee, Illinois village of Bourbonnais. Named for Olivet, Illinois, ONU was originally established as a grammar school in east-central Illinois in 1907. Olivet Nazarene University traces its roots to 1907, when the Eastern Illinois Holiness Association started Miss Mary Nesbitt's grammar school in a house in Georgetown, Illinois. In 1908, the school's founders acquired 14 acres in the village of Olivet, and moved the grammar school to the proposed campus. A Wesleyan–holiness community sprang up around the school. In 1909, the liberal arts college was chartered and named Illinois Holiness University, with A. M. Hills from Texas Holiness University as its first president. It was then given to the Church of the Nazarene in 1912, with E. F. Walker as president, and inherited one of the most populated Nazarene regions in the United States. It was renamed Olivet University in 1915, and again in 1921 to Olivet College. The economic solvency of the school became a problem in the 1920s, and the trustees were forced to declare bankruptcy in 1926. The school's treasurer, T. W.