Reinhardt University

Founding In 1883, former Confederate Army Captain and Atlanta lawyer Augustus M. Reinhardt and his brother-in-law, former Lieutenant-Colonel John J. A. Sharp, commenced plans to open a school in Waleska. Both Reinhardt and Sharp had grown up in the Waleska area, and after the American Civil War had ended and the hardships of Reconstruction begun, both men wanted to provide a school for the local citizens of impoverished Cherokee County . Reinhardt, who had been a successful lawyer after the Civil War with the firm of Reinhardt & Hook in Atlanta and owned interest in a successful Atlanta street car line, went to the North Georgia conference of the Methodist Church and appealed for them to provide a strong minister and teacher to start the school. In return, he promised to offer this individual a yearly salary of $1,000. Sharp, who had owned a store, cotton gin, and tobacco factory in the Waleska area before the Civil War, had retained some of his money after the war and was still active in the local area. Upon deciding to start the school with Reinhardt, he purchased a local sawmill and hired men in preparation to start construction on school buildings. 1885 Reinhardt Academy Administration Building In 1884, with the Methodist Conference answering Reinhardt's request by sending Emory College graduate James T. Linn as the school's first teacher, Reinhardt Academy opened for classes in an old cabinet and wood shop located at the southern edge of Waleska. The school had been named in honor of Reinhardt's father, Lewis W. Reinhardt, who had settled in the area in 1833 and had established a local church known as Reinhardt Chapel. Just a month after the school opened, a tornado struck Waleska, damaging a lot of property and injuring several people. The school, however, wasn't harmed and classes continued uninterrupted. The tornado left downed pine trees perfect for building.

Seizing this ready supply of wood, school officials and local citizens had it cut up into lumber and began to construct Reinhardt's first permanent building. In January 1885, students moved out of the old cabinet and wood shop and into the school's newly completed, three-story framed building, which was capable of housing 11 classes of students. The school now had an official residence in the town. Over the next century, many buildings were built and land acquired, expanding the campus's physical presence to a 90-acre (360,000 m 2 ) building site and overall 540-acre (2.2 km 2 ) college campus. Fire and or demolition over the years have left no trace of any of the original 19th-century buildings.

Reinhardt Academy opened in 1884 as a grammar school and academy (high school) for students of all ages. The founders had originally wanted the school to be just a college, but at the time there were no students of college age in the area. The grammar school taught reading, writing and arithmetic, supplemented by courses in elocution, geography, history and penmanship. The academy (high school) taught students algebra, astronomy, botany, chemistry, ethics, geology, geometry, grammar, languages (French, Greek and Latin), literature, logic, music, physics, psychology, and, by 1916, art and expression. In 1888, the school had its first graduating high school class of four students. Early Reinhardt military cadet In 1893, a military department was established in lieu of a physical education department at the school. Service in this department was compulsory for able-bodied boys, where they often participated in drills, exercises, encampments, dress parades, and mock skirmishes. In 1905, the military department suggested, but didn't make mandatory, that the school's boys should wear uniforms. For girls, however, it was decided that they had to wear "blue skirts, white waists and Oxford (mortar-board with tassels) caps." [ 3 ] The military department was replaced by the Department of Physical Culture in 1922. By the last decade of the 19th century, the school was educating students who wanted to go on to be teachers in the art of pedagogy . At this time in American history, schools that offered this type of training were known as normal schools . Therefore, in 1890, Reinhardt Academy was incorporated as Reinhardt Normal College and operated under this name until 1911 when "Normal" was dropped and the school became, simply, Reinhardt College. In 1920, Reinhardt became an official junior college, when it added a second year of postsecondary education to its curriculum. The school had its first graduating college class in 1921.

By 1925, the control of Reinhardt's grammar school was transferred to the Cherokee County school system; however, the school remained on Reinhardt's campus until 1948, when R.M. Moore Elementary School opened in Waleska. In 1956, Reinhardt's academy, then known as Reinhardt High School, closed when its students were transferred to Cherokee High School in Canton, Georgia . In 1957, Reinhardt College began classes with only college-age students on its campus for the first time in its history. It admitted its first Black student in 1966 when James T. "Jay" Jordan from nearby Canton, Georgia , started classes. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] In June 2010, Reinhardt College became Reinhardt University. [ 3 ] [ 6 ]