A stroll with Dr. Bob

As Georgia College Historian, one of the real pleasures of strolling about the old campus square is to encounter the remnants of the past.

Please allow me to share with you some echoes of days long gone by. Not all our students know that, from 1818 until the 1870s, the main campus was occupied by the Georgia State Penitentiary.

The main entrance to the prison stood right between Parks and Atkinson hall, and the 16 foot prison wall ran right along the walkway from Parks Hall to Bell Hall. The main cell block began about where the fountain stands, right along the faux brick walk north to the parking area between the library and Beeson Hall.

One can still see some of the cell block foundation stones lining the shrubbery next to Lanier Hall. If sometimes you feel that you’re entering a prison—well, the ambiance survives a bit.

Georgia College acquired Penitentiary Square in 1889. At one corner of the prison stood the heating plant—it was replaced around 1912 by a campus boiler room still marked by the great smokestack at Porter Hall, and the plant itself around which Porter Hall was built in the 1930s.

Before 1995, where the Arts & Sciences building now stands, was a large open space called Beeson Field.  By 1910, part of that field was occupied by basketball courts where the young women at Georgia Normal & Industrial College became some of the first Georgians to play that sport—just about where Math classes are currently held.

As you stroll about, notice the cornerstones on the older front campus buildings, which proclaim the architects, dates, and building committees. The very first structure on the campus, called simply the Main Building, or “Old Main”, was finished by 1891. All of the classes were held in that structure which looked like a 19th century courthouse. Sadly, the building perished in a terrible conflagration in 1924. They saved the cornerstone, and it still stands on the site of Old Main in the President’s Garden, between Parks Hall and Russell Auditorium. If you look carefully, on the back wall of Parks Hall, you can still see bricks that were blackened by the fire.

So please do harken to the shades of the past as our wonderful old campus shares its secrets.

Posted by gcsunade on Apr 14 2011. Filed under Close Up, Special Sections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.