Brevard College Stone Fence and Gate – Brevard NC

Description

The stone wall at Brevard College in Brevard, North Carolina, was erected by the Works Progress Administration in 1936-37. Portions run along French Broad Avenue and North Broad Street. At the intersection of the streets, the walls are connected with a graceful stone arch entryway to the Brevard College campus. The wall originally enclosed the athletic field (another WPA project), which has since been moved. Tradition dictates that the smooth stones were collected from the nearby Davidson River.

Brevard College in Brevard, North Carolina, opened in 1934, the merging of two Methodist colleges in the area. Weaver College in Weaverville and Rutherford College in Burke County. It is located on the site of the former Brevard Institute, founded in 1895 and supported in part by the Woman’s Parsonage and Home Missionary Society of the Western North Carolina Conference. The institute served student through 9th grade, offering academic, religious and domestic sciences study.

All three schools faced challenges in the years following the Great Depression. Brevard Institute ceased operating in Transylvania County and moved instructors and staff members and sundry equipment to Vashti, a girls school in Thomasville, Georgia.