Wofford College - From The Archives

Leonard Auditorium

For whom was Leonard Auditorium named?  

That's a strange question to ask.  After all, Leonard Auditorium is undoubtedly the most important room on the Wofford campus.  It's the site of all campus convocations, the place where the portraits of former presidents hang, the auditorium for major concerts, for events that bring the community together.  And yet nobody gives much thought to who "Leonard" was.  

It was this fellow, the Rev. George Clark Leonard, class of 1895.  

And how did Rev. Leonard get the auditorium named for him?  

George Leonard arrived at Wofford in 1891 as a 25-year old freshman.  He graduated four years later and the following year, became a Methodist minister in South Carolina.  In 1914, he became a member of Wofford's board of trustees, where he served for some 31 years.  During his ministry, he was twice a district superintendent.  He was on close terms with Wofford President Henry N. Snyder, both as a fellow churchman and as a trustee during most of Snyder's presidency.  Snyder would have been the younger man's professor in the early 1890s as well.  Snyder wrote Leonard's obituary in the Annual Conference minutes in 1945.  

On his death, he made a bequest to the college's postwar capital campaign.  In February 1946, the board of trustees voted to name the renovated chapel in Main Building, which had never been known as anything but the chapel, in his honor.  Since 1946, the primary auditorium on campus has borne the name "the Leonard Auditorium" out of respect for the long service of an alumnus, clergyman, and trustee.  

Cleveland Science Hall

When Henry Nelson Snyder became president of Wofford in 1902, he knew the college's physical facilities were becoming inadequate.  During the first ten years of his administration, Snyder brought more new buildings to the campus than had been built since the original campus was built.  In addition to a residence hall and a new library, Snyder moved the science departments into a brand new science hall, the first new academic building on campus since Main Building.  

The story goes that Professor Daniel DuPre, who was the head of the science faculty, approached his Wofford classmate John Bomar Cleveland, then one of the wealthiest members both of the alumni association and in Spartanburg, with a bold proposition.  "John, you're well off financially, you ought to do something for your college.  We need some help to build a new science hall."  After asking for a ballpark figure, Cleveland considered the request silently for several moments.  Then, he told Professor DuPre to go ahead with the plan and to send all the bills to him.  

The bills totaled some $25,000.  And John B. Cleveland, for whom the science hall was named, paid them all.  With some occasional modifications and renovations, the building continued to be the home of science at Wofford until the early 1960s.  

Those renovations began very quickly.  The building was built with running water and electric lights, but space was soon at a premium.  Students dug out a room under the southeast corner of the first floor in 1910 to build an electrical laboratory.  During the 1930s, using National Youth Administration labor, students with shovels and picks dug out even more space in the basement.   Professor E. H. Shuler, who taught applied math and surveying, supervised the work, which added lab and storage space.  The Spartanburg County Foundation donated a planetarium, which was installed in the dome.  

The occasional coat of paint was about all the college could afford for maintenance, and soon the building was no longer adequate for science education - an annex provided additional classroom space as the student body grew after World War II.  By 1959, with plans to build a new science building underway, the Cleveland Science Hall was demolished. 

 

Aerial Photos of the Wofford Campus

Today I posted a series of aerial photos of the campus to my Flickr page and made them available from the Wofford Archives web page.  

Photos do more than simply let you see what a place looked like at a specific time, though that's certainly important.  More than that, they tell a story.  This series of photos shows how, slowly but surely, the Wofford of today grew out of a small collection of buildings.  Many of the buildings in these pictures are still with us, though modified.  Some buildings deteriorated to the point that they no longer served a purpose and were demolished.  We haven't torn down many buildings here, but some have been.  

These photos document the changing landscape of the campus over the past 90 years.  When I see a picture of the campus, I generally use the presence or absence of certain buildings to establish a date or an approximate date for the building.  Of course, sometimes the best we can do is guess within a certain range.  

The earliest photo appears to be from the 1920s.  That's about as specific as I can get, because we didn't build things quite as often back then as we have in recent years.  

Here's the 1920s photo

Here is a slide show of the various images.

Enjoy the slides.  If you want to see full versions of the images, see the set on Flickr.  You can also check out other collections I've posted there.  

Campus Life Building - then and now

Wofford’s Campus Life Building was designed in the late 1970s to serve as the hub of campus athletic, social, and cultural activity, according to an article in the local paper.  At that time, basketball was in Andrews Field House and the Student Affairs Office was in Burwell.  The canteen?  In Wightman.  The Theatre Workshop?  Old Carlisle Hall.  But in the late 1970s, the college was looking to bring together all of these different activities and offices into one building. 

One of the main features of the new building was the arena, designed with movable seating to accommodate 3,000 people.  Though designed primarily for basketball, college officials expected the arena to see use for other athletic and cultural activities.  Named for Benjamin Johnson, a vice president and general counsel of Spartan Mills, a Wofford Trustee, and a member of the class of 1930, the arena has been the site of various dances, dinners, programs, and Commencement 2003 was held there when the weekend turned into a total washout.  The first basketball game in the arena, on January 22, 1981, was between the Lady Terriers and Sacred Heart, and after the building’s dedication following the women’s game, the men’s basketball team played The Citadel.  Beyond the formal events, many a student will remember the days of arena registration – when students ran from one table to another to beg professors to let them into a closed class – which took place on the floor and concourses of the arena. 

While the building, which opened in the 1980-81 academic year, initially was supposed to have meeting rooms, classrooms, racquetball courts, facilities for commuting students, many of these did not make it into the final building.  Offices for student affairs and athletics took up most of the top floor, the theatre, a movie-lecture room, a television lounge, and a game room took up the main floor, and the arena and lockers made up the lower level.  The Tony White Theater, which was dedicated on February 20, 1981, was a black box style theater that provided much-needed space for the college’s growing theatre program.  The premiere production in the new theater was Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, directed by Professor James R. Gross. 

The Campus Life Center was the first new building completed on the campus in over ten years, and it marked the first in a series of newer buildings constructed during the Lesesne Administration.  When I came to Wofford in 1990, the campus life building hadn’t changed much since its opening. The game room had become the college bookstore, the TV room and lounge had been combined and turned into Zach's, the college canteen.  Both of these facilities had moved from old Wightman Hall.  But the building was already overcrowded, with coaches and student affairs staff members elbowing for space on the top floor.  With the opening of the Richardson Building in 1995, more space opened up for student groups on the top floor.  

In the early 2000s, the lobby was renovated into The Commons, with a coffee/smoothie bar, and a very tired, early 1980s look gave way to a sleek, modern, yet comfortable design, with TVs, computer workstations, and more art.  Those of us who remember what the building looked like in the early 1990s hardly recognize the lobby as the same place - where it was merely a pass-through space on the way to the bookstore or to Zach's in those days, today it's truly a student-oriented gathering space.  

Photos - the building from Snyder Field, a dinner (probably a senior dinner) in the arena, the South Carolina Methodist Annual Conference in session in the arena.  

Wightman Hall, the first "modern" residence

The first Wightman Hall was an experiment that Wofford chose not to repeat. 

In the mid-1950s, with several of the college's residence halls and the main dining facility approaching a half-century of use. Wofford officials began to plan a new facility for students that would combine dorm rooms and a new kitchen and dining room.  The building was on the site of the old Wilbur E. Burnett Gymnasium, and cost about $500,000.  The dorm was originally built for 120 students, with 20 rooms on each of the top three floors.  The rooms were in suites of four rooms, and each suite shared a bathroom.  In a fairly novel design, each dormitory room opened onto outside corridors - essentially, wrap-around balconies.  The dining room, and space for a canteen and bookstore, were on the main floor, and there was a new kitchen in the basement.  Construction begain in 1957 and was completed the next year.  These additional rooms would allow the college to retire some of the older facilities, not to increase the size of the student body. 

As Bishop Will Willimon noted in one of his essays, the person who designed Wightman Hall had no understanding of the perverted mind of the college male.  Wightman was the scene of Wofford's legendary food fight-riot - though reports of food fights and riots in the mid-1960s are legendary.  The open balconies gave students ample opportunity to hone their throwing ability, and if it could be thrown from a fifth floor balcony, someone probably tried it.  Water balloons, tissue paper, and even an occasional mattress would find their way to the ground. 

Wightman was also Wofford's first co-educational residence hall, as the first class of women to live on campus found themselves occupying the top floor of the residence hall. 

The dining room on Wightman's main floor proved to be a fairly short-lived experiment.  With the opening of the Burwell Campus Center next door, the main student dining room moved out of Wightman.  The vacant dining room became the college canteen and bookstore, a situation that lasted until the Campus Life Building opened in 1981.  Renovations to provide a new laundry room and just over a dozen more residence hall rooms began in late 1983 and continued through 1984, with occupancy in the fall of 1985.  Those rooms were considerably nicer than those on the three floors above, partly because they were newer and partly because the rooms opened onto an inside hallway.  And although the dining room had moved, the Wightman basement continued to be used as the college's main kitchen. 

Plans to expand the Milliken Science center caused the college to build a new residence hall on Evins Street in 1998-99, and Wightman Hall was abandoned and demolished in early 1999.  However, the kitchen remains - the residence hall literally had to be demolished around the kitchen.  If you look carefully, the kitchen is sort of hidden behind the Milliken Center.  And, in tribute both to Wofford's first president and to the college's tradition of naming dorms after presidents, the new facility on Evins Street was renamed Wightman Hall. 

Note: It has come to my attention that the 1983 renovation date for Wightman is not entirely correct, so I've modified it in the text above.  Always feel free to correct errors, especially if you remember events differently than I record them!

The answer to the mystery building question

No one tried to name that building.  

Last week, I put up a post asking if anyone recognized this building.  Oddly, I didn't get any replies.  

Maybe the building was just too far back in the mists of time for anyone to recognize it.  

The building was the W. E. Burnett Gymnasium, built after a call from President Carlisle to the alumni expressed the need for a first-class gymnasium on the campus.  After Andrews Fieldhouse was constructed in 1929, it saw many alternate uses - perhaps the campus's first adaptive reuse of a building.  It housed the ROTC department, served as a rifle range, a recreational hall (hopefully not at the same time), a canteen, a band room, a classroom, and finally, as the headquarters of the music and art department in the early 1950s.  

It was named for Wilbur E. Burnett of the class of 1876, who was the largest donor and most tireless advocate of its construction.  

It was demolished in 1956 to make way for the original Wightman Hall, a 4-story combination residence hall and dining hall.  

Below is the 1896 fund-raising letter for the old gym.

Mystery - Name That Building!

Here's a challenge from the archives to all of you out there.  Name this building.  

As you can see from the second picture, it doesn't exist on the campus any more, but it stood for many years.  

 

I don't have any prizes other than bragging rights for those of you who can tell me what it is, but if you want to make a guess, you can leave a comment.  

The many lives of the Daniel Building

The Charles E. Daniel Building, across the street from Main Building and the Sandor Teszler Library, is sort of the quiet neighbor on the street.  Quiet and nondescript though it may seem, it has an interesting past.  In its first life, it was the college's first free-standing library. 

 The college received a bequest of $10,000 in 1906 from Miss Julia Smith, the daughter of longtime English professor Whitefoord Smith (yes, that's not a mis-spelling), who had served on the faculty from 1855 to 1891.  A subsequent gift of $10,000 from longtime major donor E. L. Archer (he helped finish paying for Alumni Hall to boot) helped the college get the library project underway.  It opened in 1910.  The original library wasn't as large as the building is today; the wings were added in 1947 as a way of expanding the reading room and stack space.  The post-World War II renovation, like the original construction, was necessary because of a growing student body and faculty and the need for space for more books. 

The building continued to serve as the Whitefoord Smith Library, though it was later simply the library, until 1969.  When the college opened the new library, the one we currently occupy, in 1969, the old library was converted for use as a classroom and faculty office building.  The art and music faculty and classrooms moved from the Black Science Annex into the ground floor of the newly-named Charles E. Daniel Building.  The departments of government, philosophy, art history, mathematics, accounting, and education, along with a few other assorted professors, moved into the seventeen faculty offices.  Daniel 204, with its elevated horseshoe-shaped desks, was the first classroom of its type on campus, presaging similar classrooms in the Olin Building by 20 years.  The building was also fully air-conditioned, something we take for granted now but which was not universal on campus in that day.  A casualty of the renovation was the blocking in of several of the building's windows.  Many students and faculty criticized the decision to block in some of the windows, though the inside appearance was improved by the renovation. 

Some departments moved out of the Daniel Building when Olin opened in 1992, but philosophers, political scientists, art historians and musicians and Wofford's ROTC detachment still call Daniel home. 

In upcoming weeks, I hope to talk about some of the legendary faculty and famous alumni that have walked the campus.  Before Interim is over, I also want to talk about some interesting Interims from years past.  And, since I'm participating in an Interim myself this year, one that is studying Wofford's oral history, perhaps you'll hear something about that as well. 

Fraternity Lodges

An article in the Wofford College Journal in the fall of 1955 describes the new fraternity lodges, which were scheduled to open in the spring of 1956.  Here's the article and some of the drawings, entitled "Horseshoe of Fortune"

A much hoped for but little expected dream is at last becoming a reality! Fraternity men and rushees alike entered the just completed rush season with a new enthusiasm springing in large part from the tangible evidence of the realization of a hopeful vision long nurtured in the minds of Green badge bearers.

The dream in question is a satisfactory answer to Wofford's fraternity lodging problem.  The evidence is the hum of building activity going on behind the science halls and the library.  Preliminary clearing and surveying activity has been completed on what will be a horseshoe of seven lodges.  Two different floor plans (above) will be used, and there will be four different fronts.  Both lodges on the ends will have the [first] front and the left floor plan.  The remaining five lodges will have the right floor plan.  These lodges will have one of the other front designs. 

There will be no driveway built, the lodges being readily accessible from Memorial Drive, Wofford Drive, Greene Hall, and auditorium parking lot.  A cement walk will encircle the inside of the horseshoe, however.  All lodges will face into the horseshoe.  Completion of the project is expected by April, and the lodges will be ready for occupancy at that time.  The assignment of houses to the individual fraternities will be determined by drawing lots. 

Photos of two of the four designs and the two floorplans. 

Snyder Hall memories

For much of the 20th century, Wofford students lived in one of three dormitories: Carlisle Hall, Hugh S. Black Hall, and Snyder Hall.  While Black Hall was the oldest, and Carlisle was the first one built specifically as a college dormitory, Snyder played a special role in the lives of college and fitting school students. 

After a fire damaged the upper floors of alumni hall (as the Hugh S. Black Building was initially known) the college decided to build a second building for the Fitting School.  This building contained both classrooms and dormitory rooms and was simply known as the fitting school dormitory.  (The Fitting School was the college's preparatory school, designed to prepare students for admission to Wofford's freshman class.)  From 1901 to 1905, the building housed sleeping rooms for students and instructors as well as classrooms.  A large dining room on the first floor served its residents, and an assembly hall on the second floor, just above the dining hall, served as the meeting place for the campus YMCA.  In 1905, another classroom building opened, and the dormitory became simply a dormitory.  The assembly hall was converted into sleeping space as were the classrooms. 

When the Fitting School closed in 1924, the building's name was changed to Snyder Hall, in honor of the college's president.  It was used as a college dormitory until 1943, when the Army took over the campus for use as a college training detachment center.  With the return of the student body after the war, the dining hall was converted to another use and students took their meals in Carlisle Hall.  About 80 students lived in Snyder Hall. 

Even in the late 1940s, Snyder Hall had become inadequate.  A capital campaign to replace several outdated facilities fizzled, and Snyder Hall remained in use until the 1960s.  Renovations in 1957 added a few more years to Snyder's life. 

One student in the late 1960s published "A Snyder Hall Resident's Prayer" in the OG&B.  It read as follows:

Dear God, it scares me to see how this College can ignore a place as filthy as this, but yet feel it is doing well to preserve its unique atmosphere.  Help the maintenance department to realize that soap and water goes further than plywood and tacks.  Oh God, grant me tolerance and forgive my futile complaints.  Amen. 

Snyder had reached the end of its usefulness as a dorm, and without any other purpose, the college decided to demolish the building in 1969. 

Photos: Snyder Hall at various stages, alumni with some faculty and President Paul Hardin standing in front of Snyder Hall as it was being demolished, 1969.