From These Roots

In the early 1900s, North Greenville was struggling financially. The trustees, risking their own financial future, kept the school doors open by co-signing mortgages on the property. They believed in the mission of North Greenville and they were willing to risk it all to save the little school on the hill. In 1905, the trustees discovered a kindred spirit in Dr. A.E. Brown, the superintendent of the Mountian Mission Schools of The Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board. It was in this year that North Greenville High School was accepted as one of their Mountain Mission Schools. This meant that the school would receive more funds and support than ever before. The first thing Dr. Brown and the trustees did was submit plans for a new administration building.

In November 1905, a cornerstone was laid, speeches were given, and a picnic was served to celebrate the future of North Greenville. A little less than a year later, on September 4, 1906, the new building was dedicated with speeches by Mr. A.J.S. Thomas of the Baptist Courier and Dr. E.M. Poteat of Furman University. The following is a description of the building from Jean Martin Flynn’s book, “A History of North Greenville Junior College.

“It was a handsome structure, a two-story building, pine on the interior and pebble dash on the exterior. A tower rose in the center. This was so out of proportion with the rest of the structure that in later years, Mrs. I.W. Wingo said she always felt that she could throw a little rock at it and knock it off. There were three classrooms on the second story and three and an assembly room on the first floor. The entire lower floor could be thrown together for an auditorium, and there was a small gallery in front opposite the platform. The new school house cost less than $3,500, and upon completion, only seven hundred dollars was due, this balance being met by the trustees’ mortgaging the property on their own personal note.”

In 1911, under the leadership of J. Dean Crain, the first local person to be principal of North Greenville, the administration building was renovated. The first floor of the building was veneered in brick, the second floor was covered in cypress shingles, and four rooms were added.

The next major additions came in 1933, during the Great Depression, when a central heating system was added to the building. The parts of the heating system were purchased used from various places and Dr. Donnan, the principal at the time, put it all together himself. When the boiler shack later caught fire, Dr. Donnan dragged logs from the woods and fixed it himself.

That same year, it was decided that the school needed an auditorium to conduct chapel services. The school, lacking the funds to even purchase nails, turned to faith, the churches, and The Dobson Lumber Company of Greer. Jerry Dobson, the owner of the lumber company, agreed to send all of the materials needed with the understanding that North Greenville would pay him, free of interest, when the funds were available. The local churches agreed to send any experienced carpenters from their congregations who were willing to give a day or more of work to the project. Some of the churches that didn’t have any carpenters sent money to hire one. Years later one of these local carpenters told The Baptist Courier’s John Roberts about his experience building the auditorium:

“I helped build that building back during the Big Depression. The school was out of money, seems like it always was, but they wanted to finish that building so the boys and girls would have a place to go to class and hold chapel. Some of us around here got together and agreed to give a week apiece. I laid bricks. It was cold like today and I didn’t have any gloves. My hands got so sore it wasn’t long until there was blood on every brick.”

In 1954, it was decided that North Greenville needed a more modern administration building to meet the needs of the growing college. The school’s second administration building would have to come down first and the work would be done by students, Dr. Donnan, and Mr. Reece. The following story of the demolition was told in the September 1954 issue of The Skyliner:

“John Bolton, Gene Blackwood, Bob Dudley, Hugh Donnan, Gene Seay, Jack Dean, Leon Poe, Kenneth Wham, and Ralph Lybrand thought an easy task was ahead- all play and no work. The first couple of days found the boys ripping up everything in sight. Mr. Reese, the school carpenter of many years, remarked: ‘They’ll find that there’s more work than play and taper off a bit.’ He was right. Each day thereafter the energetic destructors began to slack up. One day three of these dare-devils were hanging by the rafters on the roof and needed some advice. Mr. Reece was called and he climbed upon the loose beams and lined things up. When he came down, he announced: ‘That’s two trips for me- my first and my last.’ The bricks were removed by placing a steel blade between the brick and the woodwork, hooking it to a cable and pulling with the truck. Occasionally this method wouldn’t suffice and dynamite was applied. Dr. Donnan was in charge of the explosive department and he got a big charge out of setting off the fuses. After setting one off, everyone made a beeline for cover, but Dr. Donnan just walked away as unconcerned as a frog on a log. Finally, the old building vanished. The process took four weeks. Dr. Donnan and Mr. Reece told the boys they were pleased with their work.”

Originally, the plan had been to keep part of the original building and move it to another part of campus to serve as classrooms. However, when they started the deconstruction, they found the wood to be badly rotted. The only thing left of the second administration building was the cornerstone and the auditorium that had been built onto it in 1933. When the cornerstone was opened in the 1950s, it contained a copy of the 1905 ceremony, a copy of the Associational Minutes, an issue of The Baptist Courier, and a few coins. The new building dates were added to the cornerstone and it was placed in the new Donnan Administration building. Before the dedication of the Donnan Administration building, Dr. Donnan told the dedication speaker, Dr. Dan Williams, about the horrible shape of the old building. It was a miracle it had stood for as long as it had. During his speech, Dr. Williams said that he’d always understood that North Greenville was “built on faith.”

The auditorium continued to be used as an auditorium until Turner Auditorium was built in 1957. At that point, the old auditorium was transformed into a student center. It would remain the student center until Foster was built in 1964. The old auditorium also housed the first clinic on campus, a school store, and an apartment. In 1967, the trustees decided that the old auditorium had served its purpose and would also be torn down.