1899: Auburn, Alabama Train Depot
Transportation; Trains; Railroads; Depots; Auburn, AL; Lee County, AL
This photograph depicts passengers at the Auburn, Alabama train depot in 1899.
Auburn University Libraries
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
1899
Schmidt, Gregory
public domain
jpg
Still Image
Depot_Auburn_1899006.jpg
United States--Alabama--Lee--Auburn
1900: Auburn Alabama Train Depot
Railroads; Depots; Auburn, AL; Transportation; Lee County, AL
This photograph is of the Auburn, Alabama Railroad Depot around 1900. The Depot burned down in 1904.
Auburn University Libraries
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
ca. 1900
Schmidt, Gregory
jpg
English
Still Image
Depot_Auburn_c1900001.jpg
United States--Alabama--Lee--Auburn
1930s: Clark Yarbrough in Goat Cart at Pebble Hill
Yarbrough, Clark; Auburn, AL; Lee County, AL; Pebble Hill; Yarbrough, Dr. Cecil; Strudwick, Mary; Goats
Clark Yarbrough, the son of Dr. Cecil Yarbrough and Mary Strudwick, is depicted in a goat cart with an unidentified companion at Pebble Hill, ca. 1930s.
Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
ca. 1930s
Beard, Maiben
No known copyright restrictions
jpg
English
Still Image
Goat Cart_Pebble Hill.jpg
Auburn, Alabama, United States
1971: Auburn, Alabama Train Depot
Trains; Railroads; Depots; Transportation; Auburn, AL; Lee County, AL
The Auburn, Alabama train depot undergoing renovation in 1971.
Auburn University Libraries
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
1971
Schmidt, Gregory
public domain
jpg
Still image
Depot_Auburn_1971.jpg
32.6104496,-85.4806472
United States--Alabama--Lee-Auburn
Alumni Gymnasium
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Study
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
Auburn and Opelika at the End of the Civil War
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Auburn, AL; Opelika, AL; East Alabama Male College
The emancipation of slaves, a widespread labor shortage, and the collapse of the Confederate financial system all coalesced to bring the cities of Auburn and Opelika to ruin at the end of the Civil War. It would be ten years before a new home would be constructed in Auburn and the area’s educational system was completely wrecked. What was once a bustling and growing village would soon fall into stagnation. Though the East Alabama Male College reopened in 1866, it did so with fewer students and many unpaid professors.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-5
Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://diglib.auburn.edu/150th/series/au_civil_war.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Auburn University Sesquicentennial Series: Auburn in the Civil War Era by Ralph Draughon Jr.</a><br /><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41680?msg=welcome_stranger" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Book: Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama by Walter L. Fleming<br /></a>Storey, Margaret M., <em>Loyalty and Loss: Alabama's Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction</em>. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004.
Text
English
Text
Auburn Female Institute
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-28
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
Auburn Junior High School
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
Auburn Masonic Female College
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
Auburn Methodist and Baptist Schools
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-28
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
Auburn University
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-25
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
Boykin Street Elementary School
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
Camp Beauregard and Camp Johnson
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Camp Beauregard; Camp Johnson; Confederate Army; Auburn Guards; Beauregard, AL; Auburn, AL
These two camps trained six groups of Confederate soldiers that included the local Auburn Guards as well as the 14th, 18th, 37th, and 45th Alabama infantry regiments.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-4
Joshua Shiver
Text
English
Text
Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Religion; African American History; Payne, Lonnie; Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church
After the end of the Civil War, newly freed African-American men and women constructed Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church on what is today known as Baptist Hill, skirting East Thach Avenue. Lonnie Payne, a white land owner, deeded the property to a member of the congregation in 1865 and it was constructed by logs from the Frazer plantation northeast of Auburn. It was the first African-American church built in the area.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-4
Joshua Shiver
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
General James Henry Lane Home
Auburn University; Lee County, AL; East Alabama Male College; Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama; Alabama Polytechnic Institute; Social Clubs; Auburn; Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage; Civil War
The Lane House was built in 1853 at the corner of Thach and College Streets in Auburn. It was the residence of several prominent figures in the history of Auburn University. The home was leased in 1873 by Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama Treasurer E.T. Glenn. Future owner (and the home's namesake) Brigadier General James H. Lane was a revered Confederate veteran from Virginia. He rose in the ranks from Major to Brigadier General by age thirty in 1862. He was wounded three times and fought in every major battle of the Army of Northern Virginia before the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia in April 1865. It was a squad of his own men who accidentally shot Major General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863.
After arriving in Auburn, Lane taught Civil Engineering, eventually becoming the Chair of the Engineering Department. General Lane purchased the home in 1884. He was also a leading figure in the establishment of the School of Engineering and the college's Corps of Cadets. The property was sold by his daughter in 1960 to Auburn University to become the site of the school's new library. To save the home, Mollie Hollifield Jones purchased it for the Auburn Women's Club, moving it to its current location at 712 Sanders Street. Added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 1991, the home continues to serve as the offices of the Auburn Women's Club.
Evan Isaac, Joshua Shiver
Image: Home: User sfwife, waymarking.com, http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&guid=2b230b57-b2a2-4de6-b5a8-1160869852fb
Text: Lee County Heritage Book Committee, The Heritage of Lee County (Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants: 2000),
Kenneth Phillips, James Henry Lane, Encyclopedia of Alabama, http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1614
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2015-12-5
Evan Isaac, Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://www.auburnheritageassoc.org/historic-markers.html#womansclub" target="_blank">Auburn Heritage Association: Historic Markers</a>
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English
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Haley Center
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
Henry Clay Armstrong
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Armstrong, Henry Clay; East Alabama Male College; Confederate Army; Reconstruction; Alabama House of Representatives; Brazil; Auburn, AL
Henry Clay Armstrong was a student at the East Alabama Male College prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. After becoming a lawyer, he enlisted and became a captain in the Confederate Army where he served until the end of the war. During Reconstruction, he served as a state legislator, speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, state superintendent of education, and eventually the Consulate General to Brazil. He returned to the EAMC where he served on the board of trustees and the executive council.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-5
Joshua Shiver
Text
English
Text
J.F. Drake High School
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
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James Ferguson Dowdell
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Dowdell, James Ferguson; East Alabama Male College; Auburn, AL
James Ferguson Dowdell served during the Civil War as the organizer and commander of the 37th Alabama infantry regiment. After the war, he assumed the presidency of the East Alabama Male College from 1866 to 1870.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-5
Joshua Shiver
JPEG and Text
English
Still Image and Text
John Darby
Lee County, AL; Civil War; East Alabama Male College; Darby, John; Auburn, AL
A professor of natural science and one of the original trustees of the East Alabama Male College, he also taught chemistry and developed a “Prophylactic Fluid” which was widely used as a disinfectant and antiseptic by Civil War surgeons and hospitals. A potassium permanganate solution, it was probably made in a building close to where the president’s home stands today.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-5
Joshua Shiver
Text
English
Text
Mary Martin Hall
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
JPEG and Text
English
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Old Main Hall
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; East Alabama Male College; Button, Stephen Decatur; Civil War; General Lovell Rousseau; Morrill Act; Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College; Old Main Hall; William J. Samford Hall
After the state awarded East Alabama Male College its charter on February 7, 1856, the Board of Trustees set about securing funds to build an administrative and educational building. The trustees initially allocated $25,000 for the facility, but the building that came to be known as Old Main Hall required an expenditure of approximately $60,000 to complete. Stephen Decatur Button, a nationally prominent architect, designed and built the four-story Italianate-style academic building.
Old Main Hall was the primary building of the East Alabama Male College from 1856 until 1887. During the Civil War, EAMC suspended operations like so many of the country’s other academic institutions. As faculty, staff, and students left school to join the Confederate war effort, the EAMC shuttered its doors from 1861 to 1864 when Old Main Hall, Langdon Hall, and the Chapel were converted into makeshift hospitals for wounded soldiers arriving from Atlanta. In 1864, Texas’s state legislature paid to convert Old Main Hall into a convalescent hospital that they dubbed Texas Hospital. The ramshackle hospital housed over four hundred Confederate soldiers, many of whom never saw their homes again and were buried in nearby Pine Hill Cemetery.
Old Main also acted as a parade ground where soldiers from nearby Camp Beauregard and Camp Johnson marched and drilled during the war. In July 1864, Major General Lovell H. Rousseau and his force of approximately 2,500 Union cavalrymen raided the cities of Auburn and Opelika where they destroyed thirty-five miles of railroad tracks, the local post office, and Pebble Hill. In an effort to defend the city, sixteen-year old John Hodges Drake and approximately thirty or forty convalescents from the Texas Hospital offered some token resistance to Rousseau's raid, to little avail. The Federal cavalrymen left the bedridden and newly minted prisoners alone and did little damage to civilian property.
In fall 1866, students returned to attend classes in a building ravaged by the elements and war. In the early morning of June 24, 1887, a fire broke out in Old Main Hall’s lower basement chemistry lab. The ensuing conflagration consumed the entire building. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the students met for classes in the Chapel. In 1888, the school erected a new administration building, William J. Samford Hall, on Old Main Hall’s original foundation. Old Main Hall’s cornerstone is still visible at the base of the northeast corner of Samford Hall. Old Main Hall’s building originally occupied the space that is now 182 South College Street, Auburn University.
Taylor McGaughy, Joshua Shiver
Image Source: http://www.auburn.edu/communications_marketing/150/lecture.html
Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 9-11.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-21
Taylor McGaughy, Joshua Shiver
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English
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Pebble Hill
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Pebble Hill; Historic Home; Scott, Nathaniel J.; Rousseau, General Lovell Harrison; Yancey, William Lowndes; Union Army; Auburn, AL
Pebble Hill was the home of Nathaniel J. Scott and his family from 1847 to 1871. When Rousseau’s men swept through Auburn in July 1864, William Lowndes Yancey’s widow resided at Pebble Hill and Union soldiers looted the building because of her presence. It was reported that Nathaniel Scott’s family had silver near a spring on the property and though Union soldiers watered their horses at this spring, the silver was never found.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-4
Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://www.cla.auburn.edu/cah/pebble-hill/history-of-pebble-hill/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">History of Pebble Hill</a><br /><a href="http://www.cla.auburn.edu/cah/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities</a>
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Pine Hill Cemetery
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Cemeteries
Pine Hill Cemetery has over 1,100 graves and contains a mass grave of at least ninety-eight unidentifiable Confederate soldiers who died in the makeshift hospitals in Auburn. In 1893, the Ladies Memorial Association erected a monument over the spot believed to be the site of the mass Confederate grave. An additional seventy-one Union and Confederate soldiers are buried in marked graves through the cemetery.
The cemetery is located in Auburn at Armstrong Street and Hare Street.
Coordinates: 32.6006903, -85.4777268
Heather Scheurer, Joshua Shiver
http://alabama.hometownlocator.com
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-4
Heather Scheurer, Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://www.auburnheritageassoc.org/historic-markers.html#pinehill" target="_blank">Auburn Heritage Association: Historic Markers</a>
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Ralph Brown Draughon Library
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
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Rousseau and Wilson's Raids
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Union Army; Rousseau, Major General Lovell Harrison; Sherman, General William T.; Decatur; Johnston, Major General Joseph; Atlanta; Confederate Army; Texas Hospital; Wilson, General James H.; Phenix City; Columbus, GA
On July 10, 1864, Major General William T. Sherman ordered Major General Lovell Harrison Rousseau to depart from Decatur, Alabama with approximately 2,500 men. Their goal was to sever the Montgomery and West Point railroads - a vital link for funneling supplies from central Alabama to Confederate Major General Joe Johnston's overwhelmed and outnumbered forces in Atlanta. Along the way, Rousseau's men were to destroy every scrap of government supplies or materials that could be used to aid the Confederate defense of Atlanta.
Local slaves in the Auburn/Opelika area funneled information to Rousseau and his men about the area's weak defenses. In Auburn, only a handful of patients at the Texas Hospital were able to offer even token resistance. As Rousseau and his cavalry rumbled through the streets of Auburn and then Opelika, they burned warehouses, burned train depots, the post office, and disabled the local rolling stocks. Union soldiers returned once again on April 15, 1865, this time under the command of Major General James H. Wilson. They swept through Auburn, Opelika, and Phenix City, before finally making their way across the 14th Street Bridge into their intended target, the massive industrial city of Columbus, Georgia.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-5
Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-3596" target="_blank">Encyclopedia of Alabama: Rousseau's Raid</a><br /><a href="http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1375" target="_blank">Encyclopedia of Alabama: Wilson's Raid</a><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1864/08/03/news/gen-rousseau-s-raid-highly-interesting-particulars-expedition-departure-decatur.html" target="_blank">New York Times July 27, 1864: Gen. Rousseau's Raid</a><br /><a href="http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/civilwar/unionroutes.html" target="_blank">Routes of Union Activity in Alabama (Maps)</a>
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Slaton's Academy
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
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English
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The Chapel
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Auburn, AL; Religion; Langdon Hall; Auburn Presbyterian Church; Slavery; Reese, Edwin; Old Main Hall
Founded as the Auburn Presbyterian Church in 1851, “the Chapel” was built by local slaves belonging to one of Auburn’s first residents, Edwin Reese. Like Langdon Hall and Old Main Hall, it served as a makeshift hospital from July 1864 through the end of the Civil War. It is currently the oldest building in Auburn still standing on its original site and the second oldest building overall. It is still in use today as a multi-faith chapel.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-4
Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/nrhp/text/73000351.pdf" target="_blank">Floyd D. Warner, Auburn Players Theater: National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form</a>
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William J. Samford Hall
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.
Taylor McGaughy
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.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-26
Taylor McGaughy
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William Lowndes Yancey
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Yancey, William Lowndes; Chambers County, AL; Secession; Pebble Hill
Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Yancey was a fiery orator and politician who ardently defended slavery and secession. Representing Chambers County during the Alabama secession convention, he voted for the state to leave the Union and during the war spearheaded a failed diplomatic attempt to coerce Europe into recognizing Confederate independence. The Yancey family spent many summers with the Scott family at Pebble Hill.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-5
Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2064" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Encyclopedia of Alabama: William Lowndes Yancey</a>
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