Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn, AL; Auburn University; East Alabama Male College; Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College; Alabama Polytechnic Institute; Glenn, John Bowles; Old Main Hall; American Civil War; Confederate Army; Morrill Act; Dowdell, James Ferguson; Hatch Act; Broun, William Leroy; Smith-Lever Act; Agricultural Extension; Duncan, Luther N.
Established by charter in 1856 as East Alabama Male College, the academic institution that would come to be known as Auburn University was founded ten years before Lee County’s inception. Local residents, such as John Bowles Glenn, the pastor of Loachapoka Methodist Church and president of East Alabama Male College’s first Board of Trustees, comprised much of the institution’s early leadership. Erected in 1859, Auburn’s original facility was a four-story building in which six faculty members serviced a student body of 80. This building, known as Old Main Hall, served as a convalescent hospital for Confederate veterans during the Civil War. Most of the young men enrolled at the nascent institution enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861. Closed for the duration of the Civil War, East Alabama Male College reopened in 1866. In 1872, under the auspices of the Morrill Act, Auburn was named Alabama’s land-grant college and was renamed the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College. Also, during that year President James Ferguson Dowdell and the Board of Trustees voted to turn ownership of the college over to the State of Alabama. A state tax on fertilizer in 1883 and the 1887 Hatch Act provided President William Leroy Broun with funds to purchase land for institutional expansion and the foundation of a scientific research facility. In 1887, Main Hall burned down. The following year, private contractors rebuilt on the site of Main Hall, and Auburn’s administrative brass decided to name the new building Samford Hall, in honor of Governor William J. Samford, a resident of nearby Chambers County. Alabama Agriculture and Mechanical College’s first female student matriculated in 1892, and the institution’s first football team also took the field that year. The institution was renamed Alabama Polytechnic Institute in 1899 via a proposal by President Broun. In 1908, Smith Hall and several other buildings on campus were equipped with electric lighting. The 1914 passage of the Smith-Lever Act made API the headquarters of the agricultural extension system in Alabama. Under the leadership of future API President Luther N. Duncan, the extension system became a seminal educational tool. Extension agents at Auburn were instructed in the techniques of better farming through the implementation of scientific research, and in turn disseminated that knowledge to rural Alabama farmers. From 1941 to 1945, the university grounds served as a training area for the Army and Navy. In 1960, the board of trustees renamed the institution Auburn University, a nod to the sobriquet that generations of students had already bequeathed to the school.
Image Source: http://mikebozack.com/images/ Text Sources: Alexander Nunn, Lee County and Her Forebears (Montgomery, AL: Herff Jones, 1983) 62-70. Auburn University, http://ocm.auburn.edu/presidential_installation/history_tradition.html.
Education; Lee County, AL; William J. Samford Hall; Auburn University; Old Main Hall; Carnegie, Andrew; Samford, William J.; Auburn, AL
Erected in 1888 on the foundation of Old Main Hall (which burned down in 1887), William J. Samford Hall is one of Auburn University’s most easily recognizable buildings. Bruce and Morgan Architectural Firm fashioned the four-story Italianate-style structure after Old Main Hall, with one distinguishing characteristic – a majestic clock tower that rose many feet above the building’s roof. Old Main Hall’s cornerstone is still visible at the base of the northeast corner of Samford Hall. During the late nineteenth century, Samford Hall housed Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College’s administration, classrooms, and library. In 1909, Samford Hall’s library, which operated out of three cramped rooms on the second floor, moved to the new Carnegie-endowed facility across campus. In 1929, the Board of Trustees officially named the building Samford Hall in honor of William J. Samford, Alabama’s thirty-first governor. Auburn University renovated the building in 1971 and replaced the original clock in 1995. Today the building functions solely as the headquarters of Auburn University’s administration. The building is located at 182 South College Street, Auburn University.
Image Source: http://family.auburn.edu/profiles/blogs/the-best-free-services-auburn-students-should-be-taking-advantage Text Sources: Auburn University Libraries, http://www.lib.auburn.edu/arch/buildings/samford_hall1.htm The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 74.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; Carnegie, Andrew; Carnegie Libraries; William J. Samford Hall; Curtis, Nathaniel C.; Alabama Polytechnic Institute; Auburn, AL
The institution that would come to be known as Auburn University’s first library operated out of three rooms on the second floor of William J. Samford Hall. These rooms quickly became overcrowded with an excessive amount of volumes. In 1908, Andrew Carnegie provided an endowment of $30,000 to allow the institution to build a much-needed stand-alone library. Nathaniel C. Curtis, the chair of Alabama Polytechnic Institute’s Architectural Department, designed the new library, which opened on January 11, 1909, and boasted a 60,000-volume capacity. In 1940, Auburn’s Board of Trustees allocated funds to enlarge the Carnegie Library, effectively doubling its volume capacity and adding two new reading rooms. In the early 1960s, Auburn University began building a massive new library building. On November 5, 1963, the building was dedicated and the institution’s library officially moved from the Carnegie building to the new facility. Auburn University tapped the old Carnegie Library to house student financial services and redubbed the building Mary Martin Hall in honor of Auburn’s librarian from 1918 to 1949. Mary Martin Hall still stands at 211 West Thach Avenue, Auburn University.
Image Source: http://family.auburn.edu/profiles/blogs/the-best-free-services-auburn-students-should-be-taking-advantage Text Sources: History of the Auburn Libraries, http://www.lib.auburn.edu/dean/history.php. Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 12.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; Draughon, Ralph Brown; Alabama Polytechnic Institute; Auburn, AL
By the late 1950s, Alabama Polytechnic Institute’s Carnegie Library exceeded its storage capacity. The Board of Trustees recognized the immediate need for a larger facility, and in the early 1960s the university planned the construction of a major new library building. Built throughout 1962 and 1963 and dedicated on November 5, 1963, the 172,000 square-foot building allowed for the housing of all university library resources under one roof. The new library boasted a million-volume capacity, carrels, furnished seating, special reading rooms, a 108-seat auditorium, and special music rooms. In 1965, Auburn University named the facility Ralph Brown Draughon Library after the university’s tenth president, who retired that year. In 1988, Auburn organized a major renovation project designed to double the library’s floor space to 380,000 square feet, increase its capacity to 2.5 million volumes, and add a 345-car parking deck. Ralph Brown Draughon Library is located at 231 Mell Street, Auburn University.
Image Source: http://www.lib.auburn.edu/about/ Text Sources: History of the Auburn Libraries, http://www.lib.auburn.edu/dean/history.php. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 74.
Education; Lee County, AL; Haley Center; Auburn University; Auburn University College of Education; Auburn University College of Liberal Arts; Haley, Paul S.; Parker, Ray K.; Auburn, AL
The largest building on Auburn University’s campus, the Haley Center is capable of accommodating 8,000 students at any given moment. The labyrinthine, 357,000-square-foot structure includes four quadrants centered around a central ten-story tower, a floor plan that prompted Ray K. Parker, a construction inspector, to describe the Haley Center as “essentially five separate buildings.” The building serves as the headquarters for the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts, and is also houses 142 classrooms and the Auburn University Bookstore. Completed in 1969, the Haley Center is named for Paul S. Haley, an Auburn trustee who served for 51 years. The Haley Center is located at 351 West Thach Concourse, Auburn University.
Image Source: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/09/au_seeks_new_batch_of_classrom.html Text Sources: Auburn University: College of Education, http://www.education.auburn.edu/aboutus/facilities.html “Haley Center Confuses Students for the First Time,” The War Eagle Reader, http://www.thewareaglereader.com/2012/06/haley-center-confuses-students-for-the-first-time/#.VHVANr7tJUQ
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College; Bragg, Tom; Alumni Gymnasium; Lockwood, Frank; Rogers, Will; Griffith, D.W.; The Birth of a Nation; Toomer's Corner; Donahue, Mike; James E. Foy Hall; Auburn, AL
Irritated by the state’s flat refusal to fund a gymnasium for Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College, Tom Bragg, the president of the Auburn Alumni Association, solicited funds from Auburn graduates all over the country. In February 1916, noted local architect Frank Lockwood finished the new facility, which contained a basketball court that occasionally doubled as a dance hall. Any entertainment booked by the college, including homecoming dance bands, performed in Alumni Gymnasium. The building hosted some of the most noteworthy entertainers and performing artists of the first half of the twentieth century, including Will Rogers. After a screening of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 silent film, The Birth of a Nation, a race riot almost broke out as agitated male college students gathered at Toomer’s Corner to harass local African Americans. Mike Donahue, Auburn’s football coach, calmed the angry mob and convinced them to disband, diffusing the potentially disastrous situation. In 1972, the college demolished Alumni Hall to make way for the expansion of the Student Union Building (Foy Hall). James E. Foy Hall occupies the site where Alumni Gymnasium formerly resided at 282 West Thach Avenue, Auburn University.
Image Sources: http://diglib.auburn.edu/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?e=d-000-00---0loguesms--00-0-0--0prompt-10---4------0-1l--1-en-50---20-about---00031-001-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=loguesms&cl=CL1.3&d=HASH015735d8cd342a37772edc22 Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 29-30.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; New Deal; Graves, Bibb; Graves Center; Greek Revival; Agricultural Extension Service; Auburn University Special Collections and Archives; Montgomery, AL; Alabama Polytechnic Institute; Auburn, AL
Alabama Polytechnic Institute built the Graves Center – actually a complex of thirty cottages, an amphitheatre, a large dining hall, and a brass bust of New Deal era governor Bibb Graves – piecemeal throughout the 1930s. The complex of 30 Greek Revival style white cottages were originally intended by the Agricultural Extension Service to accommodate agriculturalists in town for conventions, but served a variety of functions, including housing Auburn’s football team. The dining hall served as the university cafeteria and also served as a venue for dances, costume parties, and commencement exercises. The university relocated the brass bust of Bibb Graves to the Auburn University Special Collections and Archives on the bottom floor of Ralph Brown Draughon Library. Today, two remnants of the Graves Center remain on campus. The first is the amphitheatre, which was originally constructed from granite setts that once paved Commerce Street in downtown Montgomery. Graves Amphitheatre is located at the corner of Duncan Drive and Graves Drive on Auburn University’s campus. One of the Greek Revival cottages still stands approximately four hundred feet west of the intersection of Duncan Drive and West Samford Avenue.
Image Source:http://s83.photobucket.com/user/randy4au/media/Auburn/au_webfinds/bibb_graves_amphitheatre.jpg.html Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 31-32.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; World War II; G.I. Bill of Rights; Alabama Polytechnic Institute; Federal Public Housing Administration; Life Magazine; Auburn Housing; Auburn, AL
As World War II neared culmination, Congress passed the G.I. Bill of Rights, ensuring a paid college education for American military personnel. America’s universities saw a massive influx of veteran students, and Alabama Polytechnic Institute’s experience was no different. The university lacked the housing facilities required to keep up with the enrollment increase. A special committee of faculty and administrators proposed to use deck houses as a temporary housing solution. These deck houses were actually portions of tugboats that the college acquired from the Federal Public Housing Administration in 1946 as U.S. Maritime surplus property. These ninety-three structures caused quite a stir, and were the subject of an article in Life Magazine. These tiny, light blue-gray structures contained two downstairs rooms with two bunks each and an upstairs study area. The college closed and sold the deck houses in 1949.
Image Source: http://www.ag.auburn.edu/heritagepark/history.php Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 33.
Education; Lee County, AL; Southern Union Community College; Bethlehem College; Hodge, John M.; Southern Christian Convention of Congregational Christian Churches; Piedmont Junior College; Southern Union College; Southern Union State Junior College; Opelika State Technical College; Alabama State Board of Education; Brown, Robert
Southern Union State Community College began its institutional life as Bethlehem College on June 2, 1922. John M. Hodge, a Wadley banker, donated forty acres to the Southern Christian Convention of Congregational Christian Churches as a site for the campus. From 1923 to 1964, Bethlehem College remained under religious auspices, operating as Piedmont Junior College (1928-1929), Southern Union College (1930-1933), and The Southern Union College (1933-1964). On October 1, 1964, the State of Alabama took possession of Southern Union State Junior College, which became part of a new organization of two-year colleges under the governance of the Alabama State Board of Education. The Alabama State Legislature created Opelika State Technical College in 1963 in order to fill a vocational and technical educational niche in one of Alabama’s heavily industrialized areas. The Lee County Commission donated 63 acres for Opelika State Technical College’s campus, and the college opened on January 10, 1966. Robert Brown served as its first president, heading the technical college until 1992. On August 11, 1994, the Alabama Board of Education decided to assimilate Southern Union State Junior Colleges three campuses in Wadley, Valley, and Opelika, with Opelika State Technical College in Opelika. The community college still operates on campuses in Wadley, Valley, and Opelika.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Union_State_Community_College Text Sources: “Southern Union State Community College,” Encyclopedia of Alabama, http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2946 The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 80.
Education; Lee County, AL; Antebellum Era; Harper, John; Auburn, AL; Methodist Church; Baptist Church; Yancey, Simeon; Flanagan; C.C.
Judge John Harper led a party of Methodists to the future site of Auburn, Alabama in late 1836. The next year, members the new community collaborated to erect a log Methodist church, located on the corner of modern-day East Magnolia Street and South Gay Street. The log church also functioned as a schoolhouse, where the town’s first teacher, Simeon Yancey, held class. Later in 1837, Baptists moved to the nascent community and built a stand-alone schoolhouse across the street from the log church. C.C. Flanagan became Auburn’s second schoolmaster. The Baptist log schoolhouse functioned as a primary school where Auburn’s youth learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. Flanagan became one of Lee County’s most highly regarded antebellum era educators, teaching primary and secondary school in the Auburn area for the following twenty years. Today Auburn United Methodist Church occupies the site of the original Methodist Church and School, and a historic marker notes the exact location of the original log structure.
Image Source: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/48984044 Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 47.
Education; Lee County, AL; Slaton's Academy; Antebellum Era; Auburn, AL; Oak Bowery Academy; Slaton, William F.; East Alabama Male College; Methodist Church; Religion
In 1857, this institution opened on the corner of what is now Tichenor Avenue and North Gay Street. Slaton’s Academy functioned as a preparatory school for young men pursuing admission to East Alabama Male College. William F. Slaton, a local Methodist, founded the school and served as its headmaster. Slaton was previously the headmaster of Oak Bowery Academy in Chambers County, but was persuaded by Auburn’s residents to relocate after plans for the men’s college were announced.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lissoy/sandbox2 Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 48.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn Masonic Female College; Auburn, AL; Freemasons; Scott, Nathaniel; Antebellum Era; Auburn Bank; Masons; Yancey, William Lowndes; Stephens, Alexander; Hill, Benjamin Harvey; Toombs, Robert; Auburn University Archives and Special Collections; Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College; Civil War; New South; William J. Samford Hall; Langdon, Charles; Langdon Hall; Historic American Buildings Survey; National Register of Historic Buildings; Secession
In the early 1850s, Colonel Nathaniel Scott petitioned Auburn’s local Masonic lodge (Auburn Lodge #76) to sponsor a female educational center in town. In 1853, Auburn Masonic Female College became the town’s first women’s educational institution. Colonel Scott served as president of the college’s board of directors. A spacious, two-story frame building located on the corner of North Gay Street and East Magnolia Avenue housed the female college. A plaque on a boulder a few yards west of Auburn Bank, 100 North Gay Street, Auburn, marks the original site of Auburn Masonic Female College. In its first year, the college enrolled 106 students, some of whom boarded. The Masons subsequently built a huge chapel adjacent to the school for the sum of $2,500. The chapel sat eight hundred people and was used by the female college for commencement ceremonies, plays, and concerts. In 1860, the chapel hosted a famous secession debate involving prominent fire-eaters William Lowndes Yancey, Alexander Stephens, Benjamin Harvey Hill, and Robert Toombs. A plaque commemorating the debate now resides in Auburn University’s Archives and Special Collections on the bottom floor of Ralph Brown Draughon Library. Auburn Masonic Female College closed during the Civil War, and in 1883 Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College purchased the building and moved it to its present location next to William J. Samford Hall. In 1892, the college remodeled the building and named it after trustee Charles Langdon. The college used Langdon Hall in many ways over the course of the next century, including classroom, theater, and student recreation center. Langdon Hall, which actually has no physical address, is located about a hundred feet north of William J. Samford Hall at 182 South College Street, Auburn University. The building is listed on the Historic American Buildings Survey and the National Register of Historic Places, and is the second oldest public building in Auburn.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdon_Hall Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 48-49.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn, AL; Auburn Female Institute; New South; Duncan, George W.; Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College
Auburn’s first post-Civil War public school, possibly founded as early as 1870, was actually a women’s school. Auburn Female Institute was located on Tichenor Avenue. Under Principal George W. Duncan, Auburn Female Institute offered instruction in English, Latin, history, science, literature, art, and drawing. The institution eventually became co-educational, and boys could enroll at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College as freshmen after completing primary and intermediate courses at Auburn Female Institute. In 1899, Auburn Female Institute closed and its students subsequently enrolled at the new Auburn Public School. In 1931, the city demolished the building, which resided on the site of Auburn’s current City Hall building at 144 Tichenor Avenue, Auburn.
Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Auburn_High_School_1870.jpg Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 50-51.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn Public School; Auburn, AL; Little, Charles; Gilded Age
In 1899, Auburn Mayor Charles Little and the town council appropriated bonds of $6,000 to build a large public schoolhouse. The 74x58 ½ foot building included a 40x70 foot auditorium on the top floor. Amenities included wood and coal pot-bellied stoves, a packed-dirt playground with no equipment or rides, and an outdoor privy strategically shielded by shrubbery. The absence of a cafeteria ensured that students brought their own lunches. The coeducational institute offered curriculum-based instruction for eleven grades and a high school diploma. After the city built a separate high school in 1914, Auburn Public School remained standing as the seven-grade grammar school until its 1931 demolition.
Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Auburn_High_School_1899.jpg Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 51-52.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn, AL; Lee County High School; Hudson, Belas; Quinn, I.T.; Parrish, J.A.; Northside Grammar School
In 1914, the city of Auburn successfully petitioned the Lee County Board of Education to strip Opelika’s high school of the title “Lee County High School” and bequeath that distinction to a new high school in Auburn. Auburn provided seven acres for the new two-story brick edifice school, which was built by contractor Belas Hudson for $10,400. Lee County High School opened its doors in August 1914 with an enrollment of seventy eighth- through eleventh-grade students. Lee County High School’s first principal, I.T. Quinn, was quickly succeeded by the legendary J.A. “Fessor” Parrish, one of Auburn historian George Petrie’s students. He served as principal of the institution from 1915 until 1946. In 1931, a schoolhouse accommodating all twelve primary and secondary grades opened on Samford Avenue, and the old Lee County High School was used as a recreation center. In 1948, the city began using the old building as a grammar school. Northside Grammar School closed in the early 1950s in the wake of the founding of several other public elementary schools in Auburn. The building functioned as a recreational center until 1973, when the city finally demolished it.
Image Source: http://www.auburnschools.org/ahs_band/photos/biga.html Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 53-54.
Education; Lee County, AL; Gold Hill School; Chambers County; Robertson, Nathaniel; Gold Hill Methodist Church
Located in northwestern Lee County, the Gold Hill community coalesced during the mid-1830s. Originally located in Chambers County, the settlement fell within Lee County’s boundaries after its 1866 inception. Resident Nathaniel Robertson donated land near the Gold Hill Methodist Church for the establishment of a schoolhouse around 1870. Although no building remains today, when Gold Hill School existed it lay across Lee County Road 93 from the Methodist church. The school served the small community for several years, but closed due to a lack of students. The school reopened in 1915, but again ceased operations in 1922.
Text Sources: Alexander Nunn, Lee County and Her Forebears (Montgomery, AL: Herff Jones, 1983), 21-23. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 36.
Opelika Male School and Opelika Female Academy
Education; Lee County, AL; Opelika Male School; Opelika Female Academy; Antebellum Era; Opelika, AL; Freeman, Rev. J.S.; Bowen, Mrs. E.C.; Private Academies
After Opelika’s 1854 town incorporation, citizens concerned with the educational prospects of the hamlet’s youth opened several private academies. Two of the early private schools were the Opelika Male School and the Opelika Female Academy, both founded in 1859. Rev. J.S. Freeman served as the first headmaster of the male school, and Mrs. E.C. Bowen administered the female school as principal.
Text Source: Alexander Nunn, Lee County and Her Forebears (Montgomery, AL: Herff Jones, 1983), 35.
Education; Lee County, AL; Opelika Baptist Female College; Opelika, AL; Opelika Baptist Church; Langham, J.J.
Opelika Baptist Church established a school in 1873. Local members of the denomination opened the Baptist Female College inside Opelika Baptist Church and named Professor J.J. Langham as principal. It later moved to a new two-story brick building located on the corner of North Ninth Street and Fourth Avenue. The Baptist Female College only operated for two years, but the school building owners later leased and eventually sold the property to the public school system. No two-story brick building stands at any of the modern-day four corners at North Ninth Street and Fourth Avenue. Three corners sport private residences, and the fourth contains a vacant, elevated, well-maintained grass lot.
Education; Lee County, AL; Beulah, AL; Beulah High School; Little, Franklin; Beulah Academy; School Consolidation; Pine Grove Academy; Marshall Lee Academy; McCollum Academy; Blanton Academy; Mechanicsville School; Frog Pond School; Williams, Goodwin
Under the management of Professor Franklin Little, Beulah Academy opened its doors in November 1894. In 1928, the Lee County Board of Education passed a motion to erect a consolidated first through twelfth grade school in Beulah. Beulah Academy, Pine Grove Academy, Marshall Lee, McCollum, Blanton, Mechanicsville, Frog Pond, and several other preexisting smaller schools were absorbed into the new Beulah School. Mr. Goodwin Williams of Beulah donated ten acres to the Board of Education for the all-brick facility, which cost roughly $40,000. Beulah High School was leveled in 1976 to make way for a modernized air-conditioned facility with lighted football fields and tennis courts on the same site.
Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beulah_Alabama_Beulah_High_School.JPG Text Source: Alexander Nunn, Lee County and Her Forebears (Montgomery, AL: Herff Jones, 1983), 99-101.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; Wittel Dormitory; Alabama Polytechnic Institute; Colonial Revival Style; Wittel, Samuel S.; Auburn, AL
Located at 205 South Gay Street, Wittel Dormitory represents an example of the colonial revival architectural style. Built in the early 1900s as the private residence of Samuel S. Wittel, the building first served as a boarding facility for professional women employed in Auburn and the private residence of the Wittel family. After the post-World War II enrollment spike at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, the university purchased the building to serve as a dormitory for the steadily increasing female portion of the student body.
Image Source: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/classes/hist/3970/ Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 25.
Education; Lee County, AL; Trinity Male High School; Trinity Female High School; Browneville, AL; Salem, AL; Marshall's Hill, AL; McGreen, James
One of Lee County’s first academic institutions opened in the now-defunct community of Browneville in 1837. The school lay four miles south of the modern-day unincorporated community of Salem, AL, near Marshall’s Hill. James McGreen founded the schools and served as principal.
Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 36.
Education; Lee County, AL; Union Grove School; Chewacla, AL; Private Academies; Antebellum Era; Mitchell, William M.; Methodist Church
Formerly the lone educational institution in the community of Chewacla, this tiny log cabin Christian school was built around 1840 run for two years by the Reverend William M. Mitchell. The one-room facility was located near the Methodist church on Lee County Road 391.
Education; Lee County, AL; Beauregard High School; Beauregard, AL; Beauregard, Pierre G.T.; Private Academies; Whatley School; Thompson School; Hopewell School; Hinson School; Parker's Crossroads School; Dorsey School; Sanford High School
In 1923, several rural one-room schools (including Whatley, Thompson, Hopewell, Hinson, Parker’s Crossroads, and Dorsey schools) in the vicinity of present-day Beauregard, AL consolidated to form the Whatley School. The school at Parker’s Crossroads was established in 1907 and occupied the current site of Providence Baptist Church on Lee County Road 166. In August 1928, the school was renamed in honor of CSA General P.G.T. Beauregard. The remodeled school still stands on Alabama Highway 51 approximately seven miles south of Opelika. After sixteen years of delaying with compliance to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Beauregard High School finally integrated with nearby Sanford High School. The former black high school now functions as Sanford Junior High School, Beauregard’s community middle school.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauregard_High_School Text Sources: Alexander Nunn, Lee County and Her Forebears (Montgomery, AL: Herff Jones, 1983), 110-111. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000) 37-38.
Education; Lee County, AL; Loachapoka Academy; Loachapoka, AL; Antebellum Era; Yarborough, John Fletcher; Leftwitch, America Walton; Loachapoka High School
John Fletcher Yarborough established this one-room educational facility in 1854. He became the school’s first principal, while his wife, America Walton Leftwich, taught music. Contemporary Loachapoka High School resides on the site of the old academy, located roughly five miles west of Auburn on Lee County Road 61.
Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 39.
Education; Lee County, AL; Pepperell Village School; Opelika, AL; Pepperell Manufacturing Company; Textile Production; Henry G. Clift High School
A factory community appeared after the opening of Pepperell Manufacturing Company’s Opelika textile mill in 1925. A school founded in the new neighborhood under the aegis of the county school system served the first- through sixth-grade students of white mill workers. Sometime in the 1930s, the school added seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade curricula. Children in the community too old to attend Pepperell Village School were zoned for Henry G. Clift High School.
Image Source: http://ohsclassof52.bizland.com/id321.html Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 43.
Education; Lee County, AL; Little Zion School; Opelika, AL; African American Schools; Tuskegee, AL; Owens, Gladys
Formerly located 4.5 miles south of Opelika on Highway 51, Little Zion School serviced Lee County African-American students starting around the turn of the century. Gladys Owens, a teacher from Tuskegee, commuted to Little Zion School to teach classes from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 67.
Education; Lee County, AL; Mount Moriah School; Rosenwald Schools; Rosenwald, Julius; African American Schools; Auburn, AL; Chewacla State Park; Lee County Board of Education; Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church
Located on Wrights Mill Road in close proximity to the entrance of Chewacla State Park, the Mount Moriah Rosenwald School was founded in or around 1932. The one-room school functioned for around thirty years, until the Lee County Board of Education scheduled the closing of the ramshackle building. In 1961, the school’s twenty-six students attended classes in a facility with a leaking roof, shattered windows, rotten floorboards, and no sanitation. A corrugated iron outhouse awaited young ladies in need of a freshen-up; boys were expected to utilize Mother Nature’s facilities. A lack of indoor plumbing forced teachers and students to fetch clean drinking water from almost a mile away. Sears C.E.O. Julius Rosenwald donated $275 to help establish the school, but the local African-American community raised $403 and the county government subsidized $100 of the construction. After the razing of the school, African-American Baptists in Auburn founded the Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church on the site of the old Rosenwald School.
Text Sources: “Mount Moriah School,” Fisk University Rosenwald Fund Card Database, http://rosenwald.fisk.edu/?module=search.details&set_v=aWQ9MzIw&school_county=Lee&school_state=AL&button=Search&o=0 Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 58-59.
Education; Lee County, AL; Lee County Training School; Auburn, AL; Rosenwald Schools; Rosenwald, Julius; African American Schools; J.F. Drake High School; Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, Auburn, Alabama; Great Depression; Player, Lamar; Jackson, Clarence
One of the largest Rosenwald schools erected in Alabama, the ten-room Lee County Training School served first- through twelfth-grade African-American students in the Auburn area starting in 1928. Lee County Training School became the first black public high school in Lee County’s segregated school system. When the school opened, it only serviced ten grades, but it quickly became a twelve-grade school. Clarence Jackson became Lee County Training School’s first principal. Erecting this facility proved quite expensive, as the entire endeavor cost $21,900. Philanthropist Julius Rosenwald contributed $2,350, Auburn’s white community donated $5,000, Auburn’s African-American community raised $5,000, and the state government allocated $9,500 to found the school. The ten-room facility consisted of four classrooms and a boiler room downstairs and four classrooms and an auditorium upstairs. Half of the boiler room functioned as the school cafeteria. The school closed during the Great Depression (for the 1932-3 school year), but reopened the following year under the leadership of new principal Lamar Player. Although many of Lee County Training School’s students lived well below the poverty line, they conducted food drives every Thanksgiving to distribute food to the county’s truly impoverished. The school habitually struggled to secure proper funding for its daily operations and faculty salaries. Although the state made no budgetary provision for education in the arts at Lee County Training School, a devoted core of faculty used mandatory weekly meetings to facilitate the students’ comprehension of drama, music, and elocution. In 1949, Lee County Training School organized its first band. The school bought a bass drum, two snare drums, a tuba, and two French horns, and parents purchased the rest of the instruments. Teaching resources often consisted of a blackboard, chalk, and an eraser. Because the history textbooks selected (but not purchased) by the State of Alabama mentioned no African American achievements, many of the teachers used outside resource materials to teach history. In 1957, Lee County Training School, long since overburdened with too many students for its building to accommodate, closed to make way for the opening of J.F. Drake High School. The city demolished the building in 1963, and a historic marker resides on the former site of the school in Martin Luther King, Jr. Park at 190 Byrd Street, Auburn.
Image Source: http://rosenwald.fisk.edu/?module=search.details&set_v=aWQ9MzEy&school_county=lee&school_state=AL&button=Search&o=0 Text Sources: “County Training School,” Fisk University Rosenwald Fund Card Database, http://rosenwald.fisk.edu/?module=search.details&set_v=aWQ9MzEy&school_county=Lee&school_state=AL&button=Search&o=0 Committee for the Preservation of Auburn’s African American History, Lest We Forget: A History of African Americans of Auburn, Alabama (Auburn, AL: Committee for the Preservation of Auburn’s African American History, 2011, 109-116, 140. Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 56-58.
Education; Lee County, AL; Frog Pond School; Jones Academy; Beulah Academy; Beulah High School; Consolidation of Schools; Holder, S.J; Bradshaw, J.H.
Frog Pond School, also known as Jones Academy, was on Lee County Road 279 near the intersection with Lee County Road 259. Professors S.J. Holder and J.H. Bradshaw instructed students at Frog Pond around the turn of the twentieth century. Frog Pond closed when its student body consolidated with Beulah Academy and other schools to form Beulah High School in 1928.
Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 68.
Education; Lee County, AL; Botsford School; Farmville, AL; Earnest, Margaret; Reeder, Elizabeth; Lee County Board of Education
Founded in 1923 near the intersection of Highway 280 and Lee County Road 147, pot-bellied stoves heated this three-room school. This facility, located near the Farmville community, served students from the first to the seventh grades. Former student Margaret Earnest reminiscences revealed that Elizabeth Reeder, one of Botsford’s teachers, boarded with her family. In the 1950s, the County Board of Education closed the school. Today the facility is still used as a polling place and the site of community events like pot-luck suppers.
Education; Lee County, AL; Mount Sinai School; African American Schools; Lee County Training School; Jones, Janie; Farmville, AL
Adjacent to Mount Sinai Church, Mount Sinai School catered to Farmville’s African-American schoolchildren. Housed in a two-story building, the school operated from 1913 until some undisclosed date during the 1940s. Janie Jones of Opelika taught at the facility for many years. When the Rosenwald-funded Lee County Training School opened in Auburn in 1931, many of Mount Sinai’s students opted to matriculate. Those who graduated from Mount Sinai before the foundation of Lee County Training School progressed no farther than the eighth grade.
Education; Lee County, AL; Beulah, AL; Beulah High School; Wallace, K.L.; Pine Grove Methodist Church
Located near Beulah, Pine Grove Academy was founded in the 1870s, next to the land that K.L. Wallace donated to the Methodist church on Lee County Road 262. The school has succumbed to the ravages of time, but the original church site still exists, albeit as a private residence. Pine Grove Methodist Church’s modern facility is located less than a mile from the original church and school site. This tiny county school only covered through the tenth grade. An arsonist attempted to torch Pine Grove Academy three times in the mid-1920s, finally achieving success on the third attempt. The school’s former student body thus consolidated with Beulah High School in 1928.
Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 69.
Education; Lee County, AL; Smith's Station, AL; Antebellum Era; Smith's Station School; Smith's Station Elementary School; School Consolidation; Mott's School; Oak Grove School; Prince School; Lee Bullard School; Salem Senior High School
This academic institute, one of the county’s oldest, started out as a log cabin in 1826, near where Smith’s Station Elementary School currently stands. This school never had more than thirty students. Much like the consolidations in the Beulah and Beauregard areas, the one-room schools in the Smith’s Station area began to amalgamate in the late 1910s. The merged schools included Smith’s Station School, Mott’s School, Oak Grove School, Prince School, Lee Bullard, and Salem Senior High.
Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 69-70.
Education; Lee County, AL; J.F. Drake High School; Auburn, AL; Drake, Joseph Fanning; African American Schools; Desegregation; Johnson, Judge Frank; Brown v. Board of Education; Civil Rights Movement
Auburn’s last exclusively African-American public high school was founded in 1957. J.F. Drake High School was named after Dr. Joseph Fanning Drake, and Auburn native who went on to become the president of Alabama A&M College in Huntsville. In 1968, U.S. District Court Judge Frank Johnson compelled the Lee County school system to adhere to Brown v. Board of Education. Although students were given a choice of Auburn or Drake High School in 1969, Drake’s African-American student body moved to Auburn High School en masse during the 1970-1 school year. Drake has functioned as a sixth- through eighth-grade middle school since desegregation.
Image Sources: https://www.auburnschools2.org/course/view.php?id=627 http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMKYXZ_J_F_Drake_High_School_Alma_Mater_Auburn_AL Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 71. Committee for the Preservation of Auburn’s African American History, Lest We Forget: A History of African Americans of Auburn, Alabama (Auburn, AL: Committee for the Preservation of Auburn’s African American History, 2011, 119-120.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn, AL; Auburn High School; Desegregation; Civil Rights Movement; Samford Middle School; Lee County High School; Parrish, J.A.; Green v. New Kent County, VA; J.F. Drake High School
In 1931, the institution that would come to be known as Auburn High School opened on Samford Avenue at the site of present-day Samford Middle School. From 1931 to 1959, the institution was known as Lee County High School. Until 1966, the entire public facility served Auburn’s white students from the first to the twelfth grades. The school’s first administrator was the much-beloved Professor J.A. Parrish. In 1959, Auburn City Council voted to break from the Lee County School System, and Lee County High School was thus renamed Auburn High School despite serving all the white public schoolchildren in Auburn for the next seven years. A new high school to serve ninth through twelfth graders was built at 405 South Dean Road for $1.25 million in 1966 as a “Freedom of Choice” school, meaning that any student could opt to attend Auburn High School regardless of race. The persistence of de facto segregation in “Freedom of Choice” institutions led to a legal challenge in the form of Green v. New Kent County, VA. In the 1968 Green ruling, the US Supreme Court declared that school boards must take “affirmative measures” to achieve integration and ordered New Kent to convert to a school system without “white” or “negro” schools, but merely “schools.” In the wake of the Green decision, Auburn High School’s black enrollment increased significantly in 1970 as the school absorbed all of the African-American students from J.F. Drake High School. The enrollment spike forced Auburn High School to temporarily scale back the scope of its operations to the tenth through the twelfth grades, as Samford Middle School temporarily took on the city’s ninth grade students. Upon the completion of the 500 Building Extension in 1973, AHS reabsorbed the ninth grade students. Auburn High added a new high-tech classroom extension and a media center in 1995, and a $14 million performing arts center in 2010.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_High_School_(Alabama) Text Sources: Auburn High School Band, http://www.auburnschools.org/ahs_band/ahs_history.html. Joseph M. Bagley, A Meaningful Reality: The Integration of the Opelika, Alabama City School System, 1965-1972 (MA Thesis, Auburn University, 2007), 36-37. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 71.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn Junior High School; Auburn, AL; Samford Middle School; Desegregation; Civil Rights Era
From 1931 to 1966, Auburn’s white middle (and elementary) school students operated under the aegis of Auburn High School at 332 East Samford Avenue. During this period, the sub-institution was known as Auburn Grammar School. When Auburn High School opened in 1966, the school on East Samford was renamed Samford Middle School. In 1969, the city school board again renamed the middle school, this time as Auburn Junior High School, the institution’s current title. After the 1970 influx of black high school students to Auburn High School, the newly integrated Samford Middle School took on ninth grade students for three years, and then reverted to serving the fifth through the eighth grades.
Image Source: http://www.realestateinauburn.com/auburn-info/auburn-city-schools-3/ Text Sources: Auburn Junior High School, http://www.auburnschools.org/ajhs/Faculty.html. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 71.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn, AL; Boykin Street Elementary School; African American Schools; Civil Rights Era; Desegregation
Auburn's first public elementary school that serviced only African-American students was founded in 1951, when it also briefly functioned as a junior high school. Boykin Street Elementary remained the institution for Auburn’s African-American grammar schoolchildren until integration in 1970. Boykin Street functioned as a middle school until the facility closed in 1983. The City of Auburn now uses the building, located at 400 Boykin Street, as a community center.
Image Source: http://www.alabamaasla.com/2011/05/boykin-community-center-auburn-al/ Text Sources: City of Auburn: Parks and Recreation, http://www.auburnalabama.org/parks/Default.aspx?PageID=659 The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 71.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; Luther N. Duncan Hall; Duncan, Luther N.; Alabama Polytechnic Institute; Agricultural Extension Program; Alabama A&M; Auburn, AL
The three-story Georgian-style building located at 322 Mell Street was erected in 1928 for the sole purpose of housing Alabama Polytechnic Institute’s Agricultural Extension Program, the capacity in which in still serves today. Named after Luther N. Duncan, the influential director of the extension program and future API President, the building provided a setting for Alabama’s extension agents to prepare to disseminate cutting-edge scientific techniques to farmers statewide. In 1995, Auburn’s Agricultural Extension merged with the Alabama A&M’s Agricultural Extension Program, to form the consolidated Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Luther N. Duncan Hall also houses the administrative office of Alabama Cooperative Extension System.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Duncan Text Sources: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 72, 158. Alabama Cooperative Extension System, http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/E/EX-0038/EX-0038.pdf.
Education; Lee County, AL; The Old Rotation; Auburn University; Duggar, J.F.; National Register of Historic Places; Cotton; Legumes; Scientific Experimentation; Auburn, AL
Located on Lem Morrison Drive directly across the street from the Auburn University Parking Services Building, The Old Rotation exemplifies Auburn’s tradition as a bastion of agricultural education. Professor J.F. Duggar established the acre in 1896 as an experiment to determine the benefits of planting winter legumes such as beans or peas as a winter crop cover when cultivating cotton or corn. Duggar successfully demonstrated that winter legumes could offset some of the nitrate depletion inflicted on soil when planting cotton or corn in the same field yearly. The plots planted with winter legumes in the acre consistently yielded more cotton lint than those that lay fallow during those months. The Old Rotation is the third-longest running agricultural experiment and the oldest continuous cotton experiment in the world. In 1988, the National Register of Historic Places added The Old Rotation to its list.
Image Sources: http://www.aaes.auburn.edu/comm/pubs/old%20rotation/plotsoneandtwo.html http://www.kennysmith.org/wordpress/markers/2014/11/13/the-old-rotation/ Text Sources: Auburn University, http://www.ag.auburn.edu/agrn/cotton.htm. Auburn University, Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station, http://www.aaes.auburn.edu/comm/pubs/old%20rotation/photos.php.
Education; Lee County, AL; Lee-Scott Academy; Lee Academy; Scott Preparatory; Auburn, AL; Private School; Civil Rights Era; Desegregation; White Flight; Presbyterian Day School; Scott, I.J.; Opelika-Auburn News; Nixon, Richard; Reconstruction
Presbyterian Day School, a private academy, was founded in Auburn in 1965 and was renamed Lee Academy several years later. In 1970, a contingent of white Opelikans, displeased with pending implementation of the court-mandated integration of the city school system, founded the private school Scott Preparatory. In a September 3, 1970 Opelika-Auburn News article, Scott Preparatory co-founder I. J. Scott referred to federal desegregation as a “conspiracy” between federal agencies and President Richard Nixon (to whom he referred in the article as “Tricky Dick”) aimed at completing the objectives of the nineteenth-century Reconstruction regimes. The enrollment at both private schools increased as the unconstitutionality of “Freedom of Choice” schools left little doubt that Lee County’s public schools would soon be integrated. From 1967 to 1971 (the period when court orders forced Lee County schools to fully integrate), Lee Academy’s enrollment climbed from 47 to 208. Scott Preparatory’s opening-day enrollment in August 1971 totaled 350 students. The two county private schools merged in 1981 to form Lee-Scott Academy on the site of the old Lee Academy. For many years, neither Lee Academy, Scott Preparatory, nor the combined Lee-Scott Academy enrolled or received applications from black students. However, Lee-Scott Academy is now desegregated; during the 2006-2007 school year, 5 of the 549 students enrolled were African American. Growing enrollment allowed the Board of Trustees to build a new facility, and in 1996 the assimilated private school relocated to its current home at 1601 Academy Drive in Auburn. The academy’s resource base grew during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1984, donations allowed the school to open its first computer lab. Other endowments allowed for the foundation of two others during the 1990s.
Image Source: http://www.aais-schools.org/page.cfm?p=373 Text Sources: Joseph M. Bagley, A Meaningful Reality: The Integration of the Opelika, Alabama City School System, 1965-1972 (MA Thesis, Auburn University, 2007), 67-74, 83. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 78. Lee-Scott Academy: http://www.lee-scott.org/page.cfm?p=505.
Education; Lee County, AL; Opelika, AL; Opelika Public School; Private House Schools; Ware, Mrs. O.W.; Mrs. Gorman; African American Schools; Giddens, Columbus; Hawthorne, L.; Smallwood, R.W.; Opelika Baptist Female College
On November 23, 1869, Opelika citizens petitioned the City Council to create a public high school. A Board of Trustees formed, and in 1873 the Alabama State Legislature empowered the city government to collect taxes to subsidize public education. The Opelika Public School System took almost seven years to initiate operations, primarily attributable to the success of local private schools. By 1880, four public schools opened in the homes of some of Opelika’s citizens. White schools operated in the homes of Mrs. Gorman near Young Lake and Mrs. O.W Ware on Chambers Street. African-American public schools were operated in the homes of Columbus Giddens and L. Hawthorne. When Professor R.W. Smallwood was designated superintendent of Opelika schools in 1887, he reorganized the school system and oversaw the purchase of the facility that previously housed the Opelika Baptist Female College, on the corner of North Ninth Street and Fourth Avenue. His twelve-year superintendancy witnessed an exponential growth in the student body, as enrollment increased from 25 students in 1887 to 200 in 1899. The municipal government originally divided the system into three subdivisions – elementary, grammar, and high schools. In 1902, the city erected Opelika Public School, a three story brick building on the corner of Avenue A and South Seventh Street to house all three programs. The citizenry wanted to build separate facilities to house the high school and the elementary-grammar schools, but a lack of funding inhibited the plan. After the 1911 creation of Opelika High School, Opelika Public School continued to house the elementary and grammar schools. From 1916 to 1918, the building at Avenue A and Seventh Street briefly subsumed the student body from Opelika High School due to a fire that destroyed OHS’s building. After the completion of Henry G. Clift High School, the city’s high school students left Opelika Public School again. Opelika Public School continued to serve elementary and grammar school pupils until 1929, when the student body divided into two new institutions, Northside Elementary School and Southside Elementary School. The structure that housed Opelika Public School no longer exists, and the corner of Avenue A and South Seventh Street is now home to Opelika’s City Hall.
Text Sources: Alexander Nunn, Lee County and Her Forebears (Montgomery, AL: Herff Jones, 1983), 36-37. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 78.
Education; Lee County, AL; Opelika High School 1911-1918; Opelika, AL; Henry G. Clift High School; Lee County High School
In 1911, the Alabama State Legislature allocated a disbursement to fund a public high school in every county in the state. Opelika solicited private funds to meet the state in the middle, and Lee County’s first stand-alone high school, Opelika High School, opened on the corner of North Eighth Street and Seventh Avenue. Elementary and grammar school students remained in the old Opelika Public School building on Avenue A and Seventh Street. In 1914, Auburn High School successfully petitioned the state high school commission to take the county flagship status as the “Lee County’s Public High School” away from Opelika, a decision that resulted in a funding shakeup and some related resentment. In 1916, Opelika Public High School burned down and its students were forced to re-consolidate with the elementary and grammar schools in the building on the corner of Avenue A and Seventh Street. During the 1916-1917 and 1917-1918 school years, due to the amount of students and size of the older building, Opelika High School and Opelika Public School educators were forced to offer classes during extended hours. Opelika High School’s student body transferred to the new Henry G. Clift High School in 1918 upon its completion.
Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 78.
Education; Lee County, AL; Opelika, AL; Henry G. Clift High School; Opelika High School 1911-1918; Padgett, W.J.; Opelika Daily News
In 1918, Henry G. Clift High School opened on the site of the old Opelika High School on the corner of North Eighth Street and Seventh Avenue. Opelika’s city council moved to name the new high school after the town’s mayor. Contractor W.J. Padgett built the facility for $33,000. An Opelika Daily News columnist described the edifice of the structure as “constructed throughout of dark red brick with sandstone, of severe and simple lines,” and marveled at “a grandeur and magnificence that is almost indescribable.” The anonymous columnist also commented on the building’s modern amenities, such as drinking fountains, heating equipment, and overhead lighting in every room. Decades later, the deterioration of Henry G. Clift High School led to plans to erect a new high school building on Denson Drive. In 1959, the board of education began using the building that housed Henry G. Clift High School for forty-one years as Clift Junior High. A stone monument in the front yard of the private residence located at 663 North Eighth Street now marks the site where Opelika High School 1911-1918 and Henry G. Clift High School stood.
Image Source: http://ohsclassof52.bizland.com/id342.html Text Sources: Clift High School, http://ohsclassof52.bizland.com/id342.html. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 78.
Education; Lee County, AL; Opelika, AL; Opelika Middle School; Henry G. Clift High School; Johnson, Judge Frank; J.W. Darden High School; Carver Elementary School; Jeter Elementary School; Desegregation; Civil Rights Era; Green v. New Kent County, VA;
In 1959, Henry G. Clift High School relocated to a new facility at 1206 Denson Drive and rechristened itself Opelika High School, the institutional name it bore from 1911 to 1918. U.S. District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson gave the Opelika city school system an ultimatum in August, 1969 to desegregate and redistribute the black student body of J.W. Darden High School, Carver Elementary School, and Jeter Elementary School. Opelika High School integrated minimally in 1967 as it converted to a “Freedom of Choice” school, thus allowing black or white students to attend voluntarily. After the 1968 US Supreme Court decision in Green v. New Kent County., VA rendered “Freedom of Choice” schools unconstitutional and ordered the dismantling of dual school systems and the creation of systems “without a ‘white’ school and a ‘negro’ school, but just schools.” Because the Denson Drive building was too small to accommodate the influx of black students from Darden (Opelika’s black high school) and the white high school students who opted to stay in public school, the city hastily erected a new high school on Lafayette Parkway in 1972. Since 1972, the Denson Drive building has functioned as Opelika Middle School. The Denson Drive facility housed a segregated high school and a desegregated middle school and today remains a tangible vestige of Jim Crow’s demise in the city.
Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Opelika_Middle_School.JPG Text Sources: Joseph M. Bagley, A Meaningful Reality: The Integration of the Opelika, Alabama City School System, 1965-1972 (MA Thesis, Auburn University, 2007), 40-42. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 78.
Education; Lee County, AL; Opelika, AL; Opelika High School, 1972-Present; Desegregation; Civil Rights Era; Johnson, Judge Frank M.; J.W. Darden High School; Opelika High - Southside Campus
In 1969, U.S. District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered the Opelika to desegregate its school system. Observing that African Americans comprised 30 percent of the students enrolled in Opelika city schools, Johnson demanded that all of Opelika’s public schools contain a comparable percentage of African American students by the 1970-1971 school year. In the fall of 1970, Opelika High School (then located on the site of modern-day Opelika Middle School on Denson Drive) reported 37 percent African American enrollment. However, Opelika’s school board denoted J.W. Darden High School (Opelika’s black high school) a vocational adjunct campus of Opelika High School in November 1969 and renamed the school Opelika High – Southside Campus. Coincidentally, every student who chose a vocational curriculum in fall 1970 was African American, and Opelika’s high schools consequently remained segregated. The 37 percent enrollment figure included the raw total of the two separate campuses. Noting Johnson’s irritation over the violation of the spirit of his order and fearful of being censured by either him or the Department of Justice, in 1971 Opelika’s school board purchased property and quickly began erecting a new high school. They recognized that the Denson Drive campus was too small to accommodate the newly-integrated student body. Completed in less than 10 months by a Texas-based architectural firm, the new Opelika High School opened in fall 1972. No massive white flight or significant violent episodes occurred upon the school’s full integration. In the years since its opening, Opelika High School constructed an on-campus football stadium, a performing arts center, a new band room, and a video production studio. The school stands to this day at 1700 Lafayette Parkway, Opelika.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opelika_High_School Text Sources: Joseph M. Bagley, A Meaningful Reality: The Integration of the Opelika, Alabama City School System, 1965-1972 (MA Thesis, Auburn University, 2007), 5, 42-48. Opelika High School, http://www.opelikaschools.org/ohs/. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 78.
Education; Lee County, AL; Opelika, AL; J.W. Darden High School; Desegregation; Civil Rights Era; Darden, Dr. J.W.; Head Start; Opelika High School; Opelika High - Southside Campus; Johnson, Judge Frank M.; Brown v. Board of Education; Department of Justice; African American Schools; Peterson, Birdie; East Street High School
Founded in 1951, J.W. Darden High School took on the ninth and tenth grade students of East Street High School and added eleventh and twelfth grade curricula. Darden was Opelika’s African-American high school until the city’s high schools integrated in 1972. The school board chose to name the black high school after J.W. Darden, Lee County’s first African-American doctor. From its inception, Darden High served as a focal point of local African-American community life in Opelika. Interviews of former students relay the sense of pride that Darden High instilled in Opelika’s black residents, despite fighting a losing battle with the school board for adequate funding. Birdie Peterson, a 1965 Darden graduate, remembered Darden as a “premier school” and imparted the respect that its students had for their educational environment, claiming that they “kept that building up as if it were (their) our own home.” In May 1968, the Department of Justice forced the city school board to end construction on a $350,000 remodeling project at Darden High School. The DOJ saw the expansion of Darden as a measure taken to appease local African-Americans and maintain Opelika’s segregated school system in defiance of Brown v. Board of Education. In the fall of 1970, in an attempt to delay conformity to Federal Judge Frank M. Johnson’s order to fully integrate, Opelika’s school board refashioned Darden High School as a vocational school. They renamed Darden Opelika High – Southside Campus and included the school’s student body in its enrollment figure despite the separate locations of the schools so as to make Opelika High School appear integrated when it in fact had done no such thing. The black student body remained at Darden for the next two years as Opelika’s school board scrambled to build a new high school and comply with the court integration order. Upon the opening of Opelika’s integrated high school, the school board decided to close Darden despite its relative newness in comparison to the rest of the city’s school buildings. Many in Opelika’s black community mourned the school’s closing. When Darden closed, the Opelika’s African-American population lost their high school football team, cheerleading squad, color schema, and to some degree a sense of local autonomy. The school board then sold the Darden High School building to Head Start, who still uses the facility, located at 600 South Fourth Street, Opelika, today. A strip of grass in front of the facility frames a stone marker commemorating Dr. J.W. Darden and the efforts of the many teachers who molded the minds of Opelika’s black high school students.
Image Source: http://www.classmates.com/places/school/Darden-High-School/28068?hitwiseSegment=free&checkCookie=1417644400216 Text Sources: Joseph M. Bagley, A Meaningful Reality: The Integration of the Opelika, Alabama City School System, 1965-1972 (MA Thesis, Auburn University, 2007), 46, 35, 51-53. The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 79.
Education; Lee County, AL; East Street High School; African American Schools; Carver Elementary School; J.W. Darden High School; Opelika Colored School; Opelika, AL
Between 1910 and 1912, the city of Opelika erected the Opelika Colored School, the town’s first black public school. The school was located on East Street and housed ten classrooms. The school catered to students from the first to the tenth grade, and was soon renamed East Street High School due to its location. In 1951, J.W. Darden High School opened and took on East Street’s ninth and tenth grade enrollment. In the aftermath of this realignment, East Street High School became Carver Elementary School.
Image Source: http://ohsclassof52.bizland.com/id195.html Text Source: The Heritage of Lee County Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County, Alabama (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000), 79.
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn Public School; Auburn Rosenwald Public School; Auburn, AL; Ebenezer Baptist Church; African American Schools; Hutchinson, Rev. J.T.; Rosenwald, Julius; Moton, Dr. Robert; Washington, Booker T.; Tuskegee Institute; Lee County Training School
In March 1915, a group of concerned Auburn citizens held a fund-raising rally at Ebenezer Baptist Church aimed at financing a school for the town’s African-American children. In attendance were over three hundred African Americans and about a hundred whites. The campaign was led by the white Presbyterian minister, the Reverend J.T. Hutchinson. The city’s white and black population collectively raised $1,550 for the building fund. In 1916, Sears CEO and noted philanthropist Julius Rosenwald contributed $300 to the proposed school’s foundation, and construction of the facility commenced. The school building was completed in 1917, and consisted of five rooms that offered seven grades. Dr. Robert Moton, Booker T. Washington’s successor as principal of the Tuskegee Institute, delivered the keynote address at the building’s dedication ceremony and lauded Rosenwald’s contribution to African-American betterment. Auburn Public School became the town’s first African-American grammar and intermediate school. The school would serve as Auburn’s African-American school until 1929, when a second Rosenwald school, Lee County Training School, opened its doors. Lee County Training School offered a high school diploma as well as secondary education, and the students of Auburn Public School all enrolled in the new Rosenwald institution. Auburn Public School’s building occupied the corner of Bragg Avenue and Frazier Street, Auburn.
Text Sources: “Auburn School (C.T.S.),” Fisk University Rosenwald Fund Card Database, http://rosenwald.fisk.edu/index.php?module=search.details&set_v=aWQ9MzEx&school_county=Lee&school_state=AL&button=Search&o=0 Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 54-55.
Education; Lee County, AL; Rosenwald Schools; Loachapoka, AL; African American Schools; Rosenwald, Julius; Pearson, Dr. Ann, Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church; Lee County Historical Commission; Randolph, O.L.; Crittenden, Emogene Willis; Lee Crossroads School
In the spring of 1913, Loachapoka became the site of the first of over 5,300 rural black schools in the United States subsidized by Sears CEO Julius Rosenwald. Rosenwald, who grew up destitute, wanted to provide African Americans living in the South with the opportunity to acquire an education in the years before desegregation. He contributed $300 to the school’s building fund and the white and black citizens of Loachapoka raised the remaining $493. The two-room building contained a fireplace to accommodate its heating needs and glass-paned windows. The building initially lacked both electrical wiring and indoor plumbing. The elementary school serviced grades one, two, five, and six, while grades three and four were taught nearby at the Lee Crossroads School on Lee County Highway 188. Eventually, Loachapoka Rosenwald School closed as the town’s African-American children enrolled in other elementary schools, but the town continued to use the building as a community center. In 1960, a fire consumed the wooden structure. Now only a scant few bricks and a portion of the broken concrete foundation remain of the school, which is located on the property of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church at 2 Day Lily Street, Loachapoka. Dr. Ann Pearson, a former Auburn English professor, researched the Loachapoka Rosenwald School, determined that it was Rosenwald’s first rural school, and spearheaded an initiative to erect a historical marker at the former site. On November 11, 2011, the Lee County Historical Society hosted an event to commemorate the Loachapoka Rosenwald School at which several former students and teachers spoke. Emogene Willis Crittenden, a former student, remembered her principal, O.L. Randolph, as a mild-mannered father figure. Due to a lack of public visibility at the actual site of the school (which is located behind Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church), the Lee County Historical Commission decided to place the marker across Day Lily Street from the church.
Image Source: http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMHPR8_First_Rosenwald_School_Loachapoka_AL “Loachapoka School,” Fisk University Rosenwald Fund Card Database, http://rosenwald.fisk.edu/?module=search.details&set_v=aWQ9MzE3&school_county=lee&school_state=AL&button=Search&o=0 Text Sources: Bradley Roberts, “Rosenwald Schools,” Chattahoochee Heritage Project, http://www.chattahoocheeheritage.org/2011/12/rosenwald-schools/ “Loachapoka School,” Fisk University Rosenwald Fund Card Database, http://rosenwald.fisk.edu/?module=search.details&set_v=aWQ9MzE3&school_county=lee&school_state=AL&button=Search&o=0 Natalie Wade, “Nation’s First Rosenwald School to be Recognized in Loachapoka; School Memorabilia Sought,” AL.com, http://blog.al.com/montgomery/2011/10/nations_first_rosenwald_school.html
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Auburn Masonic Female College; Langdon Hall; Auburn, AL; Civil War; Secession; Yancey, William Lowndes; Stephens, Alexander; Toombs, Robert; Brownlow, William G. "Parson"; Union Army; Langdon Hall; The Chapel; Old Main Hall; Pine Hill Cemetery; Auburn University; Langdon, Charles
Originally built as the Auburn Masonic Female College chapel in 1846, the building that became known as Langdon Hall stood on the corner of Gay and Magnolia Street near the current site of Auburn Bank. As the oldest building in Auburn, it served as the political nerve center of eastern Alabama for most of the 19th century. Boasting the largest auditorium in eastern Alabama, it was the scene of countless lectures and political debates leading up to the American Civil War. In 1860, it was the site of a major debate on secession between future Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens, future Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs, anti-secessionist William G. "Parson" Brownlow, and fiery orator and politician William Lowndes Yancey. In July 1864, as Major General William T. Sherman's army bore down upon Atlanta, soldiers wounded in its defense were evacuated to surrounding communities. A contingent of soldiers from Texas were moved to the city of Auburn and housed in Langdon Hall, the Chapel, and Old Main Hall, which were converted into makeshift hospitals. After the war, Auburn's annual Confederate Memorial Day celebration typically began at Langdon Hall before eventually terminating at Pine Hill Cemetery. In 1883, it was moved from its original location to its present spot on Auburn University's campus where it has been used as classroom space ever since. Just six years later, it was renamed Langdon Hall after prominent Alabama politician, war veteran, and Auburn trustee Charles Langdon.
Auburn University Libraries: Langdon Hall