Important Dates in Muscogee County School District History

Provided by Libba Russell
1777 Georgia constitution requires that the state support schools in every county.
1826 Muscogee County is carved from Creek Indian lands
1828 First schools created in the county
1836 Columbus becomes a city in January, 1836
1837 Wynnton School opened probably in a wooden building. It was a private school for boys, one mile east of Columbus, chartered by the Georgia General Assembly. There was a female academy by 1839 but separate from the male academy. That building is no longer in existence. The accepted date for the construction of the brick building, later stuccoed, still in use today is June 17, 1843. This part of Wynnton School is in the National Historic Registry as the oldest building in continuous use as an educational facility in the state of Georgia. From 1890 to 1891, Wynnton School was the male part of Wynnton College. The catalogue pointed out that the college afforded

“all the advantages of the city while every temptation is removed. There is not a saloon within a mile and a half of the grounds.”

It only lasted one year, and no wonder.
1839 Georgia Legislature made each county a common school division and gave authority to appoint a school commission and to tax for schools. March 4, 1839 a County School Commission was appointed. However, there was little aid to public education from the state and many private schools grew up.
1866 The birth of public schools in Columbus (generally accepted date). The City Council of Columbus passed a resolution to provide for public schools on November 19 and this is accepted as the birth date of the MCSD. The General Assembly of Georgia passed an act establishing the Columbus Public Schools on December 28, 1866. This was immediately after the Civil War and most children had not been in school for several years. The war had left everyone with no money and few could afford private schools. John McIlhenny is credited with founding public schools in Columbus. He donated $1000.00 for the purchase and equipping of a school building. George Peabody (born in Columbus) gave $3,000,000.00 for public schools in the south and some was used to found the Columbus schools.

“Ignorance is the fruitful source of both public and private misfortune.”
“The child now is the future man for good or evil.”

These are quotes from the Resolution to provide funds for public schools written by John McIlhenny.
1867 On Monday, October 1, 1867 the first public school, Columbus Male Public School #1, opened with 229 pupils. The building purchased for this was the old Presbyterian church on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street. In 1887 a new school was built there which was used until 1934 when it was torn down. That location is now Fire Station #5. That first year the schools received no state funds. Schools were financed by city appropriations, gifts from citizens, and a $2000.00 grant from the Peabody fund. The first school superintendent was George M. Dews. He served 17 years from 1867 to 1884. He is buried in Linwood Cemetery. His salary was $1,800.00 a year and a house on the school premises. It was the same 25 years later, but without the house.
*** There were no other city supported public schools in Georgia.
1867 This same year in October, a night school was established for young men who worked during the day. There was a charge of $1.00 a month. Attendance was a problem with as few as 10 in attendance some nights. By 1898, attendance was 55 including 3 men 30years old, one of them married.
1868 Claflin School established through the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.
1871 First high school established.
1872 Muscogee County School System founded. On September 12, the Muscogee County School System was launched with 771 white students and 1,174 colored students.
1872 Public Negro schools established as part of the city school system. Mrs. Julia Hampton was one of the first Negro teachers in the system. The first school was in rented quarters, Temperance Hall.
1873 Mr. A.J. Ketchum was one of the first black principals.
1874 The Peabody fund gave the Columbus black schools $600.00. At that time there were 5 black teachers and 13 white teachers.
1875 In June, the school board bought the African Methodist Church on Mercer Street for $800.00 with one acre of land. This was converted for school purposes and a 2 story frame building with 4 rooms was built on this same site. In October 1888, the street and the school name was changed to 6th Street.
1877 High school closed for lack of attendance. That year only 3 boys and 4 girls graduated. Part of the problem was the high school had to be self-sustaining, it was not free. Tuition was $5.00 a quarter.
1880 Public Library was chartered in June.
1880 The school board acquired Claflin School. W.H. Spencer, an influential educator, who began his work as a teacher and administrator in the 1870’s, was placed in charge of Claflin School. Miss Anna Love and Miss Lucy Love, both graduates of the Columbus Public Schools, were elected teachers at Claflin. A report on school enrollment show total black enrollment was 517, surpassing white enrollment at 462.
1882 Black schools were overcrowded with enrollment of 827, 599 attending. In May, 160 Black citizens petitioned the Board asking that the grades of their school be raised a year to a total of 9 years. This was not granted since the
schools were already overcrowded. It was suggested that an additional story be added to 6th Street school.
1888 Rose Hill and North Highlands were annexed into the city. Rose Hill School was established on 21st Street although the building presently sited there was not built until 1899. A school for colored was established on 28th street in North Highlands in a rented building.
1889 High School department established.
1890 Back citizens petition for a high school. It was considered but there was not a suitable building.
1892 First graduating high school class, 17 girls, including Miss Edwina Wood, and 3 boys. This was a two year program.
1895 Charity Free Kindergarten organized for children whose mothers worked in the mills. It was also used to train Kindergarten teachers.
1895 In this year there were 5 schools for white children and 4 for colored children. The colored schools were Claflin, Sixth Avenue, Fourth Street, and 28th Street.
1896 It was decided to buy a “first class writing machine to be kept in the superintendent’s office.” (This was the systems first typewriter.)
1897-1898 During this school year, the county schools required 7 months of school. The schools listed were Midway, T. W. Fortson, Grimes, Double Churches, Phelts, Providence, Upatoie, Kendrick, and Epworth.
1898 Building for Columbus High School built. It was erected at the corner of 11th Street and 4th Avenue and was a two story brick building. In 1926 Columbus High moved to the Lakebottom area and the building became an
elementary school.
1898 Booker T. Washington, then President of Tuskegee Institute, delivered the address at the closing exercises of the colored schools in June.
1901 Primary Industrial School established for the benefit of mill children. This was founded through the interest and financial aid of George Peabody. It emphasized manual training and domestic science. The teachers lived at the school.
1905 Kindergarten system added to public schools. The first one was at East Highland and then they were added to all schools in Fall, 1905. These were privately funded by the Free Kindergarten Association and by local taxes until the legislature made state funds available to educate children under 6 years of age.
1905 The county schools had 49 teachers. There were 35 schools, 17 white and 18 colored. Most were one room with one teacher.
1906 Sixth Avenue School had established an industrial department in carpentry by the boys and laundry service and cooking by the girls. A new department of iron and leather work for boys was to be added.
1906 Industrial High School established. This was the first industrial high school in the United States. G. Gunby Jordan and George Peabody helped to finance this school. The first building was at 1100 29th Street. In 1937, the present Jordan High was built and the old school became Columbus Junior High, and later the Academic Success Center.
1907 Dr. Roland B. Daniel served as Columbus Public Schools superintendent for 28 years from 1907 to 1937.
1908 Sixth Avenue School was sold to build a new school for blacks on 5th Avenue. A blacksmith shop was built in the rear of the building. All the work was done by teachers and pupils. By 1909, a blacksmith and leather shop were in operation at the 5th Street school.
1916 First teacher’s aid fund established by John McIllhenny.
1918 Dr. Mercer Blanchard was appointed as the first school physician. He served for 40 years. Dr. Edward Bryant was the doctor for the colored schools. I do not know for how long.
1921 The first woman was appointed to the school board. This was Miss Edwina Wood who served from 1921 to 1940. (She was also in the first class that graduated from Columbus High in 1892, and was one of the first kindergarten teachers.)
1922 The present building for Clafin school erected for Negro children as a part of the city schools.
1925 The city limits were extended and Wynnton School was taken into the local city school system.
1926 Columbus High was built at the present location. The building and equipment cost $500,000.00.
1930 Spencer High School erected. This was the first high school for Negroes. It was on 10th avenue, later became Marshall Junior High, and has now been torn down and the land sold. It was built using $22,500.00 from the Rosenwald Fund and $5,000.00 from George Foster Peabody.
1936-37 Jordan High built at the present location. The building and equipment cost $416,265.00. The P.W.A. under FDR contributed 45% of this cost.
1939 Erection of Manley Taylor Elementary School for Negroes with the help of the P.W.A.
1941 A change occurred when the name of the governing body of the school system, the Board of Trustees, was changed to the Board of Education.
1941-1945 Negro schools went to a full nine month schedule. Federal funds aided construction of an addition to Radcliff.
1943 Baker School was completed. This building was a county school and housed elementary and all junior high students in the county. The building of this school was made possible mainly through federal funds (Harrison-Fletcher Bill, Public Law 815 and 874) for federally impacted areas. Married students could attend Baker. It was finally named Baker High School in 1949. (Many county students attended city high schools and the county paid their tuition.)
1943 the Greater Columbus Committee formulates a plan for the future development of the community. They recommended that Columbus have a publicly supported college. Another recommendation was to consider the
unification of the county and city schools. This committee became the Columbus Planning Association, Inc. under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce.
1945 Dr. William Henry Shaw became the superintendent of the Columbus City Schools. He continued as superintendent of the merged school system, MCSD, and served for 28 years until 1973. Dr. Nathan Patterson was the superintendent of the county schools and he served as an assistant superintendent until his retirement.
1947 W.C. Bradley’s residence and grounds on Wynnton Road were donated to the school district by his family. This residence became the Bradley Museum (opening in 1952) and the land was used to build the Bradley Memorial Library (opening in 1951)and the school district central office building, which opened in 1956.
1947 The twelfth year was added to high school as ruled by the state legislature.
1947 Dr. Shaw secured an option to buy a diary farm on Warm Springs Road that is now the site of Columbus State University.
1949 Land was purchased for a future junior college.
1950 On January 2, 1950, the Columbus Public Schools merged with the Muscogee County Schools and became the Muscogee County School District. This merger required a constitutional amendment signed by Governor Ellis Arnold in 1948 and an Enabling Act of the state legislature in 1949. It was voted on and approved in separate elections by the citizens of the city and the county. The merged school budget for that year was $2,552,113.20.
*******The merged school district was the first of its kind in the State of Georgia.
1951 the Bradley Memorial Library opened on Bradley Drive on the donated Bradley property. This property served as the main library until the new library opened on Macon Road in 2003. The old library building is now used to house various administrative and educational services.
1880 Public Library chartered in June
1881 Public Library was founded in Columbus. On January 10, 1881, the Columbus Public Library Association met and rented rooms, and hired a librarian.
1900 Funds ran low, so the books were moved to the high school, and the City Council placed the library under the administration of the trustees of the schools.
1906 The library is located in the 11th Street School and high school students were acting as librarians.
1906 The school system received $30,000.00 from the Carnegie Board and a new building opened October 15, 1907. This building was located on an area known as Mott‘s Green on Broadway just north of Muscogee Mill. It was used until 1947.
1952 The Columbus Museum opened.
1956 Current central office accepted for occupancy January 9, 1956. Prior to that, the central office was at 1320 Third Avenue, the former Columbus Roberts’ family residence.
1958 In January, Columbus Junior College opens in the old Shannon Hosiery Mill on Talbottom Road.
1963 Columbus College officially opened its new permanent campus. The property was formally transferred to the Board of Regents.
1963 In September, “Freedom of Choice” integration was to begin in the high schools. The Bradley Library was integrated.
1964 The process of integrating the schools was begun when Janis Bryan and others served the board with an integration suit. On January 18, 1965, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals partially affirmed and partially reversed the
Georgia Middle District court’s decision, which had approved MCSD’s desegregation plan. In 1968 the Board approved desegregation of faculty. The first year of total integration was 1971-72.
1987 The Cool Our Kids Campaign was accepted by the voters and was financed through the sale of bonds in the amount of $17,820,000.00. Interest on temporary investments made the total $22,274,630.00. Every school in the
district was completely air conditioned.
1994 In January, the first elected school board took office. It had previously been appointed by the grand Jury. Mary Sue Polleys, the at-large member, was selected as board chairperson, becoming the first woman to hold this position.
1995-1996 This school year the MCSD was granted unitary status in federal court, coming out from under court ordered desegregation supervision. (Check for exact date.)
1996 The Georgia State Constitution was changed by voters statewide to give public schools access to local sales taxes for the first time in history.
1997 The first Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), a 1% sales tax, was passed by local voters resulting in $148,000,000.00 in revenue for capital improvements. (Details of what was done with the money?)
2003 A second SPLOST was approved in November of 2003. It is effective for five years or until $148,720,000.00 is collected. So far $145,411,557.00 has been collected in 51 months. It will run for 9 more months if necessary. This
money was to be used for capital improvements, building new schools, and included a new library and administration building.
2003 The new public library opened.
2009 September 15, 2009 SPLOST planned for capital improvements, building new schools, etc.