Now-razed former Bright School building in Fort Wood
The early-to-mid-1920s was a period when many now-familiar structures, institutions or businesses in Chattanooga were being built or started.
Several, including Memorial Auditorium and the Maclellan Building, have been highlighted recently, and another structure begun in 1924 and important to Chattanooga proponents of private and independent education was the Bright School. One hundred years ago this year, the school’s handsome and classic structure was completed in Fort Wood.
Located a short distance up Fort Wood Street above the northeast corner of Palmetto Street, the now-razed structure was considered quite an upgrade over the four other rented structures on McCallie Avenue used by founder Mary Gardner Bright since 1913.
It perhaps signaled that the school was on its way to more permanency as an elementary school that tried to properly prepare students for secondary education, including at such fellow independent schools as Baylor, McCallie and Girls Preparatory School. And through those halls in Fort Wood would walk many students who would go on to serve Chattanooga and other communities in various areas of leadership and service as adults.
When it moved to Fort Wood, the school was able to find a location that was both close to the center of Chattanooga activity but also safe and quiet, features not always easy to combine. It had been built on three lots in a residential neighborhood that had been developed a little earlier.
Ms. Bright, who was 27 years old, had previously rented space in now-gone homes at 803, 642, 639 and 869 McCallie Ave.
The Fort Wood structure was designed by noted Chattanooga architect R.H. Hunt and constructed by the Mark Wilson Co. It featured nine classrooms, including one for each grade and kindergarten. It also had classes for such fine arts courses as art and manual training, subjects that Miss Bright felt were an important part of education.
The main school entrance on Fort Wood Street on the south side was up some steps, and students came into a landing between the basement and first floor. In the basement, which had surrounding windows that easily opened, were the manual training room and four classrooms. That floor also had a covered entrance on the west end for automobiles driven by parents and others picking up students in inclement weather. An initial playground was on the east side.
On the first floor above the basement were three classrooms, the principal’s office, and, in the rear, a combined auditorium and cafeteria of 39 feet by 58 feet. A kitchen was also included.
On the second or top floor initially were two complete apartments, each of which had two bedrooms, a dining room, a living room and a kitchen. At least one of the residents in this unusual arrangement for an elementary school, of course, was Ms. Bright, a lifelong single woman.
Another early teacher was Miss Kate Thomas, who started with Ms. Bright that first year and handled the upper grades initially. Miss Margaret McCallie – the sister of McCallie School founders Spencer and Park McCallie -- also started in the early years and would also live in the building.
While the school had adequate space to expand in 1924, Miss Bright was cognizant of keeping the class sizes ideal. That was in part because she remembered the challenges of being a public-school elementary teacher in Chattanooga and having large classes that she felt negatively impacted the learning environment.
The sturdy building that was being constructed at Bright was on more solid footing in terms of financial support as well. As plans for the new construction were just beginning, the school had been incorporated under a board of trustees headed by George H. Patten. Mr. Patten had also given a donation to the school toward the new structure and had initially encouraged its construction.
The school continued to thrive in its new location, and on May 25, 1938, Bright held a celebration at the Fort Wood school recognizing the elementary institution’s 25th anniversary. More than 1,000 invitations had been sent out for the Wednesday open house event from 4 to 6 and 8 to 10 p.m. The Bright School orchestra played, and a movie of activities at the school over the last year taken by noted local photographer and filmmaker Walter Cline was shown in the sixth-grade classroom. Also, work completed by the students in art and manual training was also displayed.
The faculty and staff in 1938 included Miss Bright, principal; Margaret McCallie, sixth grade; Kate Thomas, fifth grade; Ruby Harris, fourth grade; Betty Lauderdale, third grade; Blanche Killinger, second grade; Mary Ellen Lynde, first grade; Mrs. R.L Orgain, kindergarten and manual training; Frank Baisden, art; a Mrs. Morgan, music; Janet Guest, the cafeteria; Mrs. J.A. Pennington, rest period supervisor; and physical education/playground directors Sylvia Miller for the girls and Don Barbee for the boys. Mr. Baisden was a noted artist, while Don Barbee was a University of Chattanooga football star at the time.
The school in 1938 had 135 students and had already graduated 380 students and educated over 1,000 pupils over the previous 25 years.
Bright continued to thrive at the location during the war years and beyond, but as Chattanooga grew, so did the school. As a result, school officials added an L-shaped and two-story addition on the east end. Ground-breaking ceremonies were held on May 9, 1955, and were attended by sixth-graders, school leaders, architect Selmon T. Franklin, and contractors Mark Wilson Jr. and Sr. Miss Bright turned some dirt with a shovel.
The new wing, completed in 1956, was to occupy the space devoted to the east playground and was to include a large playroom to aid in inclement weather. A modern cafeteria with a glass panel front looking over a flower garden was also built. The cafeteria was said to help chief cook Louise Young, who was enjoying her 25th year at the school.
The 1955 article said the school prepared students not only for the popular three private secondary schools, but the city public junior highs as well.
This new addition was likely an asset, but perhaps Bright School still felt stymied or restless in some way, and a desire for this school to be completely all it could be continued. As a result, a move was soon made to relocate. That took place in March 1963 to the current location with more spacious grounds in North Chattanooga off Hixson Pike, a campus that has continued to be expanded as well in the years since.
Miss Bright had retired in 1961 and was replaced by Dr. Mary Dalton Davis from the University of Chattanooga, and she and her husband continued the tradition of living in an upper apartment at the new school.
In perhaps a noble gesture as better racial harmony was beginning in Chattanooga, Bright sold the old Fort Wood building to Zion College, a black school started in 1948 by Highland Park Baptist Church officials, including the dynamic pastor Dr. Lee Roberson.
Zion College had started at a time of segregation but also at a time when efforts were made by many Chattanoogans to aid the black community, as had existed in some form for decades. And by the time Bright sold the school building, the walls of segregation were in the beginning stages of completely coming down throughout Chattanooga.
Zion College was initially in a converted home in the 1000 block of what is now East M.L. King Boulevard. By 1959, this school that was independent from Highland Park Baptist but still supported by it announced plans for a new campus near Howard High School.
At the time, the president was Dr. Horace Traylor, who was only 28. He had been a 1953 graduate of Zion College, with a UTC writeup at the time of his death in 2021 at age 90 saying the Howard High graduate had been the first black to receive a degree from UC. That occurred when he received a master’s in 1965.
Regarding the plans for Zion College to move to Howard, they did not fully materialize, and the college actually suffered a 1962 fire at one of its campus house buildings.
But good and evidently surprising news to the Chattanooga community came about that time when Bright School trustee Gordon P. Street mentioned the sale of the Fort Wood building to Zion while asking the County Council for some road improvements to its new school.
In September 1963, about six months after Bright had relocated to Riverview, Zion College moved into the old Fort Wood building. Then, on July 22, 1964, Zion College officials changed its name to Chattanooga City College, citing some confusion about the school’s affiliation and perhaps other offerings with the original name.
Dr. Traylor would lead City College into its merger with UTC in 1969 after the University of Chattanooga became part of the UT system. In 1971, this man who had helped bring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Chattanooga in the early 1960s moved to Miami to work in college administration. He was also a pastor during his life.
After City College was merged into UTC, the old Bright building was used by UTC for safety and security offices, campus mail services, business services purchasing, and parking services. Later featuring a large grill over its west wall, it was vacated and torn down in the early 1990s before it reached 70 years old. It is now a parking lot.
Today, the site gives no hint that children once parked their bodies there to learn and play and be inspired before many put their Bright education to use and enjoyed distinguished and accomplished lives.
And neither does a sign exist that black college students were educated in the building and went on to attempt to make the world better and more whole as well.
But all that took place there, beginning 100 years ago this year.
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Jcshearer2@comcast.net
Now-razed former Bright School building in Fort Wood