Chapel has been part of the Wheaton education ever since 1860. At the founding chapel was required five days a week, and was held in the Main Building (Blanchard Hall). Chapel messages were often the duty of the school's president but was often given by other faculty members and visiting speakers. In 1871 with the expansion of the Main Building chapel was moved from the basement to the third floor, where a special two story room was built specifically to house chapel and Sunday church services. In 1925 a new building was built to house chapel for the expanding college enrollment, this building was later named Orlinda Childs Pierce Chapel in 1936.

Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections maintains hundreds of recorded chapel messages, from the late 1960s to the present. Several transcribed chapel addresses are included in Not By Bread Alone, a 1940 collection edited by Carl F.H. Henry.