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E.B. Hamrick Hall
Photo courtesy of Uptown Shelby Association

E.B. Hamrick Hall, located at the geographic center of Gardner-Webb University, is a typical institutional building with simple Colonial Revival details. It is the oldest building on campus, and unusual among the primarily post-World War II Colonial Revival buildings of the school. Gardner-Webb University, once characterized by Governor O. Max Gardner as the school that "refused to die," was founded in 1905 as Boiling Springs High School. The school had only 272 students when the hall was completed in 1925. Originally called the Memorial Building, the hall was intended as a memorial to the soldiers and sailors from the Kings Mountain and Sandy Run Baptist associations who served in World War I, especially three former students of the school who were killed during the war. As high school enrollment decreased because of the competition from public high school, the denominational school became a junior college in 1928.

[photo] E.B. Hamrick Hall, built in 1925 as a high school, today houses the School of Business at Gardner-Webb University
Photo courtesy of Uptown Shelby Association

The school was plagued by financial problems throughout its early days, particularly in the Great Depression, but survived, largely through the generosity of patrons like Elijah Bly Hamrick. The hall was partially gutted by fire in 1937, but was rebuilt and renamed for Hamrick, a Boiling Springs businessman who gave generously to the school on a number of occasions and served on the school's Board of Trustees for more than four decades. In 1942 it became Gardner-Webb Junior College, and in 1971 it became a four-year college. Today it is a thriving member of the State's family of Baptist educational institutions, and Hamrick Hall is one of the school's most actively used buildings. The building currently houses the School of Business. To many Gardner-Webb alumni, students and faculty the building symbolizes the years of struggle for the small school and the sacrifices made by its many supporters who enabled the school to survive and eventually prosper.

E. B. Hamrick Hall is located on the Gardner-Webb University campus in Boiling Springs, NC. Visit the school's website for further information.

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