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The old three-story building that housed the Russellville Elementary School from 1935 to 1952 was demolished in the summer of 1953. It was replaced by a new one-story brick structure that opened in September 1953. But for those of us who learned in that drafty old building about reading, arithmetic, writing, and ourselves, we find that through email discussions in 2006 we can uncover fairly detailed memories of those days. We have pieced together stories of our teachers, classrooms, recess periods on the coal-cinder playground, how we learned long division, and of little paste jars with our names on them. It was known to us as "Grade School." This web journal begins with the origins of the building and institution which came to life in 1872 as the Logan Female College in Russellville, Kentucky.
Logan Female College was chartered in 1867 by the Kentucky legislature. The move to create this new College was led by Rev. David Morton, a dynamic and politically astute minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Rev. Morton had formerly been President of the Russellville Collegiate Institute, from which Logan Female College evolved. He was the primary force in raising money for construction of a new College building complex whose first main building (seen above) was completed in 1872.
From 1867 to 1916, Logan Female College was a four-year institution granting degrees of B.A. and B.S. In 1917 it was accredited by the University of Kentucky as a standard junior college, and gave diplomas of Associate in Arts until it closed in 1931, bankrupted by the Depression.
The main building was located on 7th Street in Russellville. It was a three-story brick and stone structure with a central bell tower (Plates 1, 2 and 3). It housed a central Reception Hall, the President's office suite (in the northwest corner) and family accommodations, an office for the Dean of Students, a Library, and instructional rooms. Shortly after the main building (Plate 4) was constructed, work began on East Wing and West Wing buildings (Plates 5 and 6) that extended to the south from the main structure. In 1912 Lander Hall (Plate 7) was added to the west side. It was a three-story brick structure that included an auditorium on the first floor, and rooms for music and art on the second and third floors.