Old school building in South Carolina
Easley High School Auditorium, Easley South Carolina
The town of Easley was incorporated in 1873 immediately following the completion of the Atlanta and Charlotte (Air Line) Railroad and was named for William King Easley, a director of the railroad, who was originally from the area. The railroad depot, at the north side of the railroad at Table Rock (now Pendleton) and Main Streets, provided the impetus for the development of a downtown including two hotels and several brick retail structures along both streets. The opening of the Easley Cotton Mill in 1900 and the Glenwood Cotton Mill in 1902 stimulated the further growth of the town's population.
By 1904, Easley was in the middle of an active construction boom, and in May, a board of trustees was appointed for the graded school, with plans to erect a new school building. The trustees took quick action in erecting the school, based on plans by architect Avery Carter of Spartanburg. The Easley Graded School was built east of downtown Easley, facing on Main Street near College (now Russell) Street. It was approximately 100 feet square, with a 50-foot tower on the Main Street side, and entry porches on the east and west.
Within five years, however, this building was inadequate for the student population of Easley, and the board of trustees awarded a contract in June 1909 to the Gallivan Company of Greenville for the construction of a school auditorium and additional classrooms designed by architects Frank H. and Joseph G. Cunningham of Greenville. This project was an early one for the Cunninghams, whose earliest known work dates to 1908, and for the Gallivan Company, which had just relocated in upcountry South Carolina from Birmingham, Alabama. The use of steel trusses was still in the experimental stage, and the design of the Easley High School Auditorium is an early example of the gradual replacement of load-bearing masonry and heavy timber structures with steel frame construction.
Frank H. Cunningham and Joseph Gilbert Cunningham both graduated from Clemson College in 1903 with degrees in Textile Engineering. While Clemson did not have a program of architecture at the time, Rudolph E. Lee, who would later initiate the program, later the College of Architecture, had completed his graduate study and was an associate professor teaching engineering drafting and structural design as early as 1902. Joseph G. Cunningham is listed in the 1907 Greenville City Directory as a textile engineer associated with noted architect and engineer J.E. Sirrine. By 1909, Frank and Joseph Cunningham were practicing as engineers and architects in rooms 6-7 of the Mauldin Building in Greenville. The two brothers practiced together until Frank's death ca. 1929, and Joseph continued practicing until his death ca. 1960. The Cunninghams designed dozens of residences, commercial buildings, schools, and even churches during their long and active careers.
The Easley High School Auditorium opened in the fall of 1909, shortly after the beginning of the 1909-10 school year, and its new classrooms allowed the seventh through tenth grades to have their own rooms for the first time. An eleventh grade would not exist for Easley schools until the 1920-21 school year, when the West End and Northside schools were completed. About 1920, the building was improved and expanded, but the scope of work has not been determined. Easley did not build a water and power plant until 1925, and Sanborn Maps also do not indicate electric power or lights in 1907 or 1924.
By 1938, the school had outgrown its increasingly obsolete facilities and the town sought federal funding for a new building, which was built in 1940 to replace the 1904 Easley Graded School and the 1909 Easley High School Auditorium and classroom building. By 1942 the graded school had been demolished and the auditorium was occupied by the Lanier Manufacturing Company, a shirt manufacturer with Ben P. Woodside, Jr. as President and Treasurer and Ben P. Woodside, a former trustee of the Easley school board, as Secretary. The Lanier Manufacturing Company tore out classroom walls on the middle floor, installed new electrical wiring, and boarded over stairs, but otherwise made few drastic alterations to the building.
By 1954, a new United States Post Office had been built on the site of the Easley Graded School at 140 East Main Street. Lanier Manufacturing Company is listed in the 1954 Easley City Directory at 112 Russell Street, which is confirmed by the 1956 Sanborn Map as being the address of the old Easley High School Auditorium.
Lanier Manufacturing Company stayed in the old auditorium through 1964, and by 1966 was listed in the Easley City Directory at a new facility on Greenville Road (S.C. Hwy. 93). From that time, the building has been listed in the city directories as vacant, although the current owners, the owners of Jones Furniture, have continued to maintain the building and to use it for limited storage.
In 1997 the South Carolina Design Arts Partnership at Clemson University prepared a study of downtown Easley which identified the Easley High School Auditorium as a key ingredient in the revitalization of the town. The Easley Chamber of Commerce applied for recognition of the building as one of South Carolina's eleven most endangered properties, and the building was so designated in the fall of that year.
In early 1998, a strong gust of wind tore off a portion of the roof, but a temporary covering was installed to prevent further deterioration of the building, which still possesses a high degree of integrity. Planning is underway for rehabilitation of the Easley High School Auditorium to return it to its central place of importance to the Easley community.
Building Description
The Easley High School Auditorium, built in 1909, is a large, two-story building in the central business district of Easley, South Carolina. Designed by architects Frank H. and Joseph G. Cunningham and erected by the Gallivan Company of Greenville, the building illustrates the early use of steel trusses to provide a clear-span auditorium measuring 50-by-130 feet, with 18-foot ceilings.
It is a rectangular, load-bearing masonry building 52 feet wide and 180 feet long. A 13-by-42 foot wing on the south side houses two stairs, while an 11-by-58 foot one-story extension on the north side houses bathrooms and a former link to the Easley Graded School building, since demolished. The entire structure has a low-pitched hip roof with a standing-seam metal roof. Attic vents terminating in circular arches and a circular metal roof are centered on the south, west, and east elevations. The roof is supported on primitive steel trusses that have delicate structural members and massively oversized rivet plates. The end trusses at the west and east ends are trapezoidal to allow for tapering of the hip roof. The trusses support wood cross-members and rafters that support the metal roof.
The building has 86 tall windows with segmental arches and six-over-six double-hung sash, laid out like those in many upcountry textile mills. Windows on the upper (auditorium) floor are topped by a three-light transom except on the west, where the interior floor is raised. On the east wall and east part of the north wall, there are 14 windows headed by stuccoed flat arches with keystones. Windows on the upper floor above the west, east, and south entries have triple windows and flat steel lintels surmounted on the south side by soldier course brick. Most of the windows are covered with metal panels to prevent water from entering the building.
Brickwork is English bond with header courses every sixth course. The brickwork has virtually no settlement cracks, and there are only a few loose or missing bricks at the cornice. Except at the connecting wing on the north, there has been little mortar repair, and limited need for repointing of brick. Decorative elements are limited, though there is a four-brick corbeled band creating a strong frieze at the cornice level. At the south entry facade, there are rectangular panels of brick framed by stacked-bond-bricks and soldier courses at both floors. The two corners of the south tower feature brick quoins four bricks high and alternating from three and a half to four and a half bricks in length. A granite cornerstone dated August 12, 1909 is at the northeast corner; its second face includes an inscription by the Bates Lodge Number 189 of the Masonic Order.
The one remaining brick chimney runs from the furnace room in the basement to above roof level. Historic drawings indicate that the building once had additional chimneys that have since been removed.
An entry porch on the south has also been removed, with the columns relocated to an Easley residence, where they could be measured and replicated." There is a small wood canopy over the east entry door. A metal shed has been awkwardly joined to the south facade to shelter the basement entry. A portion of the roof has recently been replaced with corrugated metal sheets to repair storm damage which occurred in early 1998. Downspouts and gutters have been replaced and altered. The old connecting wing on the north was bricked over after the Easley Graded School was demolished ca. 1942. Virtually all windows and doors are severely deteriorated.
On the interior of the building, the auditorium space is virtually intact, and includes a heart-pine floor, sloped at the east end to improve sight lines in the auditorium, an elaborate coffered ceiling, and a proscenium screen. Stairways in the south wing have been floored over, but are otherwise well-preserved. Interior surfaces are principally plaster on lath with plaster applied directly to the brick on exterior walls. Most of the plaster work is severely deteriorated, but a few examples remain to demonstrate the techniques and workmanship of the time of construction. Many walls of the classrooms on the lower floor were removed ca. 1942 when the building was leased by Lanier Manufacturing Company. During Lanier's use of the building, new electrical wiring was added, mostly suspended from ceilings by wires with little irreversible damage to the building.
The Easley High School Auditorium is located on Russell Street at the east side of one of the two central blocks of downtown Easley. The block is bounded by East Main Street, Pendleton Street, East 1st Avenue, and Russell Street. Two- and three-story commercial buildings are located to the northwest facing on Main Street and Pendleton Street. To the north of the building is a clinic located in the former United States Post Office that replaced the Easley Graded School, built in 1904 and demolished ca. 1942. The site slopes steeply from north to south, providing ground-level access to the top level from the north, the middle level from the east and west, and the basement level from the south. To the south, one-story retail buildings line East 1st Avenue. Construction of the retail shops necessitated removal of the dramatic entry steps on the south side of the auditorium. An alley, now called Coffee Street, separates the auditorium from the retail buildings. The auditorium is not visible from the major streets of Easley. A bank building and vacant lot face the building across Russell Street. Just to the west of the auditorium is a temporary one-story wood building that may have served as the gymnasium for Easley High School. Most of the area immediately around the school is used for parking, with only one mature tree located at the northwest corner of the auditorium.
South and east elevations, looking northwest: Note roof damage on the east wing, and metal panels covering window and door openings (1998)
East elevation, looking west: Note stuccoed flat arches with keystones and the attic vent centered above the facade, with cornerstone to the right (1998)
North and west elevations, looking southeast: Note brick chimney from boiler room at basement level. Shorter windows at the west end reflect a raised floor on the interior. (1998)
West and south elevations, looking northeast: Note entry bridge to the left and metal shed to the right, added by the Lanier Manufacturing Company ca. 1942 and ca. 1964 (1998)
West elevation, looking east: Note segmental arched windows and intact, undamaged brick throughout (1998)
Cornerstone, looking west-southwest: The galvanized metal gutters were added later. Though dated August 12, 1909, the building was not completed until October 1909 (1998)
Brick details on south elevation, looking north: Note brick quoins and panels defined by stacked bricks and soldier course. The knockouts at right center originally supported the porch roof (1998)
Window details at east elevation, looking west: Note application of stucco over brick to simulate flat arches with keystones (1998)
