Browse Items (963 total)
- Collection: Alabama Places and Spaces
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Opelika High School 1911-1918
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…
Opelika Public School
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…
Auburn Junior High School
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…
Tags: Auburn, Education, Lee County
Smith's Station 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…
Pine Grove Academy
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,…
Mount Sinai School
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…
Botsford School
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…
Frog Pond School
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…
Mount Moriah School
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…
Little Zion School
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…
Loachapoka Academy
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…
Union Grove School
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…
Trinity Male and Female High Schools
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…
Opelika Baptist Female College
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…
Opelika Male School and Opelika Female Academy
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…
Gold Hill School
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…
Auburn Female Institute
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…
Tags: Auburn, Education, Lee County
Auburn Masonic Female College
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…
Slaton's Academy
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…
Tags: Auburn, Education, Lee County, William F. Slaton
Auburn Methodist and Baptist Schools
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…
Tags: Auburn, Education, Lee County, Religion
Southern Union State Community College
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…
Tags: Education, Lee County, Opelika
Graves Center
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…
Tags: Agriculture, Auburn University, Education, Lee County
Alumni Gymnasium
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,…
Tags: Auburn, Auburn University, Education, Lee County
Haley Center
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,…
Tags: Auburn, Education, Lee County
Ralph Brown Draughon Library
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…
Tags: Alabama, Auburn, Education, Lee County
Mary Martin Hall
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…
Tags: Auburn, Education, Lee County
William J. Samford Hall
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…
Tags: Auburn, Auburn University, Education, Lee County
Auburn University
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…
Tags: Auburn, Education, Lee County
385 Gunter Avenue
The building was built around 1925 and then later remodeled in 1975. It is a one story building with a flat roof. The building is designed in the early 20th century commercial block style. It has a brick veneer and was built on a brick foundation.…
383 Gunter Avenue
The building is a two story early 20th century commercial building that was built around 1930. It has a flat roof and the building faces to the west. The building has a brick veneer and is currently in good condition. The building was and is still…
373 South Gunter Avenue
The building was built circa 1935. It is a two story building in the early 20th century commercial style. The building has a flat roof and faces west. Its primary use was as a store. The building was remodeled around 1985 and then again in 2000. The…
P.B Swoopes Dry Cleaners
P.B. Swoopes Dry Cleaners was a business run by P.B. Swoopes in Sheffield Alabama. Swoopes was a graduate of Sheffield school. He would go on to open his dry cleaning business in downtown Sheffield. Swoopes started his dry cleaning business in 1927.…
Colbert County Colored Fair
As far back as 1912 there is a record of a fair for African Americans taking place in Colbert County. The fair took place at a location called the Fair Grounds. The fair was popular, with a large turnout for the event. The event officially began on a…
Colbert's House
George Colbert’s House was built on the Natchez Trace along the Tennessee River near the ferry he owned and operated. This house was one of the first buildings in the area to have a clear record of its completion. Historians have placed the…
Colbert's Ferry
Colbert’s Ferry was a ferry service and an inn run by George Colbert. In 1801, the United States government managed to secure the right to build roads on the Natchez Trace. However, Colbert managed to secure all ferry routes over the rivers for the…
First Baptist Missionary Church
First Baptist Missionary Church was originally founded in 1886. The first church consisted of two wooden buildings. These buildings would later be destroyed in a fire. The congregation was then forced to use the Masonic Hall as their new meeting…
First Baptist Church of Tuscumbia
The First Baptist Church of Tuscumbia was originally formed by a small group of African American worshipers. The church was established in 1866 shortly after the Civil War under the guidance of Elder W.E. Northcross. The church members did not have…
Tuscumbia Landing
During Indian Removal, Tuscumbia’s Landing served as the point of disembarkation for the water route used to move Native Americans west of the Mississippi. The train to Tuscumbia brought the Cherokee Nation to Spring Park, where they were held…
Tuscumbia-Courtland & Decatur Railroad
The Tuscumbia-Courtland & Decatur railroad was established by a group of investors led by Benjamin Sherrod in 1841. Originally a two-train car, the railroad was established to allow ships to bypass the shoals of the Tennessee River. In 1843, the…