The Water Tower on Campus

If you ever walked through the western end of campus, you may have noticed an enormous water tower that rises above the dormitories, commercial businesses, and shade trees.  Located near the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, the tower is situated on Oakland Ave between Josephine Boyd and Kenilworth streets.  The tall structure is adorned with the school’s logo and its sports mascot.  The images are painted in the school’s colors of blue and gold.  Serving as an important visual landmark for the school, you might be surprised to learn that the water tower is not actually owned and maintained by the university.  How did this structure become woven into the visual landscape and collective memory of the school?

The water tower is owned and operated by the city of Greensboro.  It is part of a city network of eleven water towers that provide water to residents, businesses, and the municipal fire protection program.  The tower serves the area of southwest Greensboro that includes the university and the Coliseum.  Since 1927, there has been a city-owned water tower located on Oakland Avenue.

In 1927 the city of Greensboro was rapidly growing and seeking to expand its water services.  The city had already built two large water towers.  The first water tower was constructed at Bellemeade and Greene streets in the late 19^th century.  The second tower was built at Church Street and Wendover Avenue in the early 20^th century.  The 150-foot water tower on Oakland Avenue represented the third structure built by the city.  The water tank was designed to hold 500,000 gallons of water.  The 1927 structure had a simple functional design.  It was a design that was used by many towns and cities throughout the United States.  The water tank was placed at the top of the structure and held up by a series of metal girders.  The girders themselves were held in place by a series of metal support “rings.”  At the very top of the tank was capped by a cone-shaped cover that many folks described as looking like a man’s hat or cap.  This water tower met the needs of the surrounding Greensboro community for decades.

1927 Water Tower with the UNCG Logo

When did the water tower become a visual landmark for the school?  It appears that a conversation was held between the university and the city about painting the school’s name on the tower in 1988.  After a series of conversations, the city of Greensboro in 1990 granted permission to the school to paint “UNCG” on the tower.  UNCG was painted in blue with gold bars above and below it.  The painting project was completed in March 1990 and the new tower’s lettering could be seen nearly a mile away.  By painting the school’s name to the tower, the actual structure acquired a new purpose that of a visual marker for the university.

By 2000, the 63-year-old structure was the oldest water tower in the Greensboro water system.  In 2003, the city of Greensboro allocated monies to demolish the old tower and replace it with a much larger 1 million-gallon water tower.  Starting in May 2003, a large construction crane was brought in to slowly dismantle the tower.  The cap that was affixed to the top of the water tank was the first item to be removed.  Over the next two weeks, the metal structure was taken apart and removed from the site.  While the school logo had only been on the old tower structure for thirteen years, it seems that the UNCG logo was firmly fixed in the minds of faculty, students, and Greensboro residents.  Indeed, Carol McDowell (a city water engineer) was asked how people would find the UNCG campus once the tower was removed.  Recognizing that a new replacement water tower would soon be built, McDowell replied that “I tell them they’ll be able to find it again in about a year.”

In July 2004, the preparations for the installation of a 91.5 ton water tower tank were being completed.  The huge tank was slowly lifted up by a system of cables so that it would ultimately rest on the top of a solid tower.  The $1.6 million water tower project was designed to meet the current and future needs of the university and the surrounding communities. 

Would the new tower be employed by the university as a visual landmark?  Recognizing how the water tower was adopted by the UNCG community, the university has always planned to employ the school’s logo on the new tower structure.  As the new water tank was being assembled on site, a painting crew from Landmark Structures was employed to paint the school’s athletic logo of a giant Spartan warrior and the letters “UNCG” on two sides of the structure.  The letters and the logo were painted in the school’s colors of blue and gold.  The project required 70-man hours, 10 gallons of paint, and 2,340 feet of painter’s tape.  In 2016, the UNCG design and image were repainted.  Today, the tower and the UNCG design logo and mascot continue to welcome and orient visitors to campus.

2004 Water Tower

Greensboro Got the Girls ... Now Where Do We Put Them?

In last week's Spartan Story, we looked at the decision to name Greensboro as the site for North Carolina's newly-created State Normal and Industrial School. Greensboro citizens were happy and excited -- while those in other towns also in contention for the institution were not so pleased. Greensboro won the right to host the new school by pledging $30,000 along with a site for the campus's development. But the offer alone didn't mean that the money - or even the land - was in hand.

In July 1891, shortly after being awarded the school, a committee was formed to drum up citizen support for a bond referendum to be voted on in late July. The bonds would allow citizens to support the city's efforts to raise the $30,000 pledged to the state. The committee proved successful in its campaign as 771 citizens voted in favor of the bonds; no votes were cast opposed.

State Normal's first president, Charles Duncan McIver,
pictured here in his office in the Main Building in 1895

That night, a "rousing meeting" was held at the Greensboro Court House. The chief speaker was Charles Duncan McIver, who had been selected by the board of directors to be the first president of the new State Normal and Industrial School. McIver "fervently proclaimed his faith in the future progress of the State through the education of its women. He expressed complete satisfaction with the Board's selection of Greensboro for the school, praising its climate, accessibility and its fine public spirit." Likewise, the Greensboro correspondent to the Raleigh News and Observer reported that "Greensboro was delighted with President McIver, and glad to know that he is soon to be one of us."

The issue of raising $30,000 through bonds proved simpler to resolve than that of finding and selecting a site for the school. A number of sites around town were suggested as possibilities. The Steel and Iron Company offered two sites - one directly on a rail line just over a mile outside of town and one within the city limits on Church Street. Another site offered, known as the "Brick School Site," was located about 100 yards west of Greensboro Female College (now Greensboro College). Another site known as the "Tate Site" was also just west of Greensboro Female College on West Market Street.

Ultimately, in November 1891, the site that was selected was one referred to as the "Pullen Site," located about a half mile west of Greensboro Female College on Spring Garden Street. This site was also within view, but not directly on, the railroad line. Two Raleigh real estate speculators and philanthropists, Richard Stanhope Pullen and Robert T. Gray, donated the ten acres that would house the school. The land sat just inside of the city's corporate limits, adjacent to a farm owned by the Reverend R. R. Moore.

Epps & Hackett's original architectural renderings for the
Main Building and Brick Dormitory at State Normal

With a site selected, the board of directors hired Greensboro architects Orlo Epps and C.M. Hackett to design two large brick buildings for the campus. One building was to house the school's academic functions and the other to house its students. Contractor Thomas Woodroffe was brought on to build the structures. Epps and Hackett chose to design the two buildings in the Romanesque Revival style which had been made popular at the time by architect Henry Hobson Richardson.

Main Building was constructed to house the president's office, 10 classrooms, the library, a small gymnasium, and an auditorium/chapel. Originally referred to as the "matron's hall" or the "living building," the second structure is most often referred to as Brick Dormitory. Located approximately where the current McIver Building stands, Brick Dormitory contained a kitchen, a dining room, and living spaces for the student body.

After more than a year spent planning the new school and constructing its facilities, the State Normal and Industrial School officially opened its doors for an initial class of 198 female students from across North Carolina on October 5, 1892. The Brick Dormitory was destroyed by a fire in January 1904. But the Main Building, which was renamed in 1960 to honor Julius Foust, the second president of the school, remains in use primarily for classroom and academic office space. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Greensboro Gets the Girls!

On February 18, 1891, the General Assembly of North Carolina passed an act that officially established a "normal and industrial school for white girls." This act appropriated $10,000 per year for maintenance of the school, but not for buildings, land, or other facilities. In fact, the act stated that "the institution shall be located ... at some suitable place where the citizens thereof shall furnish the necessary buildings or money sufficient to erect them." Cities were given until June 1st to submit their bids to host the new school.

Act to Establish a Normal Industrial School
for White Girls, 1891

On June 9th, the appointed board of directors met in Raleigh to consider the various host proposals. Three main competitors for the new institution emerged -- Durham, Graham, and Thomasville. Greensboro had not even submitted an offer, although the News and Observer in Raleigh reported that representatives from Greensboro "intimated an intention to make a proposition." The board members adjourned to investigate the proposals, but the Greensboro citizens continued their work. The Graham (N.C.) Gleaner wrote that "all this time the Greensboro folks were as busy as beavers, running hither and thither getting subscriptions to knock the other applicants out who had entered the race at the beginning and made a square manly fight for the school." Many newspapers intimated that Greensboro was the understood front-runner, assuming they could garner the necessary support and funds, and that the investigations of the other offers was merely a matter of courtesy.

After learning of the offers from Durham, Graham, and Thomasville, the citizens of Greensboro held a mass meeting on June 12th to finalize their proposal. The citizens present voted unanimously to make a bid of $30,000 plus a site -- an offer which surpassed all others under consideration. Following this offer, the school's board of directors unanimously decided to accept Greensboro's offer. The chairman of the board, Major S.M. Finger, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, stated, "I congratulate Greensboro on the result. I believe this is the proper place for [the school]. The Piedmont is the coming part of the State."

Local newspapers in Greensboro also celebrated the decision. The Greensboro correspondent to the News and Observer titled his article "Greensboro Wins," with the subtitle: "She Gets the Girls Industrial School -- The City of Flowers is Happy." The Richmond Dispatch announced "Greensboro Gets the Girls." And the Greensboro Patriot praised the "spirit of progress and liberality manifested by the citizens and rejoiced that Greensboro's advantageous location, accessibility to railroads, and healthy climate had been recognized by this decision."

Understandably, the other three cities under consideration for the school were not pleased by the decision. The Durham Globe blamed "the men of property" in that city for "lack of enterprise," stating "Greensboro was wide awake and all her citizens were open-handed. There was no waiting for two or three men to do it all; there was no jealousy and no personal pride. It was city pride and city enterprise." Citizens in Graham complained that the board considered the proposals of Graham and Thomasville only as a means "to pry Greensboro" into submitting an offer.

Cover of a promotion booklet produced by the Greensboro
Chamber of Commerce, 1892

Thomasville, however, argued the strongest against the choice of Greensboro to host the new school. J.A. Leach, who presented Thomasville's proposal to the board of directors, wrote an open letter criticizing the board's "hasty action" and failure to give the other towns the chance to outbid Greensboro if they desired. His chief complaint, though, was that the board selected a "fashionable city" where prices were high compared to other areas. The choice of Greensboro, in his opinion, violated the section of the school's establishment act which stated that "the institution shall be located at a place where low rates of board can be secured." He argued that the purpose of the school was to provide education for poorer girls "not in a city that is noted for its style and costly female dress, where the Normal and Industrial girls will have to dress as well as the college, graded school, and city girls do when upon the streets or at the churches where they must go, but in some town where good board is cheap, and plain inexpensive clothing can be worn with propriety."

In spite of objections, Greensboro was indeed set to house the new State Normal and Industrial School. Stay tuned to next week's Spartan Story where we learn more about the Greensboro citizens' work to move forward with the campus's development.