From the time the trustees laid out and sold lots for homes until the college moved, the town of Wake Forest was in many ways a creature of the college. Actually, when the town was first incorporated in 1880, a year after nearby Forestville, it was called the Town of Wake Forest College, longtime college trustee the Rev. James Purefoy (and the richest man in town) was the mayor and many of the town commissioners were professors. A controversy on campus was the staple of conversation in every store, across every dinner table. It was not until 1909 that the town became just the Town of Wake Forest so that it could sell bonds to provide the money for the new electrical system.
There were two controversies during the 1920s – one which had regional implications and one that can provide a sidelight to the University of North Carolina’s apparent intent to increase the number of out-of-state students in coming years. (Neither the college nor the university admitted Black students until many, many years later.)
The first uproar was over the teaching of evolution, and it raged throughout the South from 1920 through 1925 with the Scopes case. John Scopes, a high school teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was tried because he taught evolution in his classes. He was defended by Clarence Darrow and prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan, who died five days after the trial ended. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100.
Wake Forest College President William L. Poteat was both a scientist, a biologist who believed in and taught evolution, and a devout Christian whose faith agreed in every particular with Baptist doctrine. Dr. Poteat and his family lived in the house owned by James Purefoy on lot 78 of the original town plat and left to his daughter, Emma Purefoy Poteat. Now used as offices for Wake Forest Baptist Church and with plantation-style pillars in front, in the 1920s it had a one-story front porch with latticework, faced Wait Avenue just before the street crossed the railroad tracks and was across the street from the train station. Dr. Poteat and the family had a habit of sitting on the porch and watching the students who crossed from the campus. (In town, he was referred to as President Billy and his wife was called Miss Emma.)
The attack on Poteat began in 1921 with an article in several Baptist papers in other states and a pamphlet distributed among Baptists in North Carolina. There was a strong movement to force Poteat out of the presidency, but the college alumni rallied to his cause and also opposed any restrictions on teaching at the college. Also, the editor of the state Biblical Recorder refused to print any discussion about whether evolution should be taught at the college.
Poteat himself, New Testament in hand, confounded his critics in a speech during the Baptist State Convention in December of 1922. “In point of fact the speech as a whole was an apologia, a confession of faith, and exposition of the speaker’s own religious experiences and the principles on which they were based. As the attack had been on him in person his defense was a personal defense,” Dr. G.W. Paschal wrote in his history of the college.
Poteat also had the backing of the college trustees, who nevertheless were constantly hearing, “Why don’t you get rid of Poteat?” Tent evangelists, ministers of all denominations, even the governor, denounced evolution and Poteat for teaching it.
He had been president since 1905 and had planned to retire in 1922, but he stayed on as president until he was 70, resigning in 1927 as the controversy died down. He remained at the college, teaching biology, until his death in 1938. During his presidency, Bostwick Hall, a dormitory, was built on campus in 1924, and in that same year the central heating plant was built on the Gore property. In 1926, an addition to the Heck-Williams building provided more space for the college library.
Succeeding Poteat as president was Francis P. Gaines, who first stepped onto the campus after he was elected. When they arrived, Gaines and his family lived in the former home of President Charles E. Taylor on North Main Street (Taylor had enlarged the house because he had six daughters and one son), but the trustees immediately began building a new president’s home. They purchased for $5,500 the site of the former home of President Manley Wingate and built a 12-room stone veneer house for $22,500.
In his inaugural address, Gaines said Wake Forest should be “a small, cultural, Christian college.” The idea of it being small was contrary to the vision of the college founders and earlier presidents, who sought to make Wake Forest large enough to provide for all the Baptist young men in the state. “Every Baptist in the state felt that his son had the right to admission to Wake Forest and to the enjoyment of its training, without being subjected to possible rejection on a scheme of limitation and selection of students,” Paschal wrote. “They had a right to expect the college to admit them on the same terms as the University of North Carolina admits its students.”
Although some of the faculty and an executive committee of the trustees agreed with his plan, the majority did not. And the fact that there was even talk about limiting admissions led to decline in enrollment. There were 742 students when Poteat resigned in 1927; the last year of Gaines’ presidency, 1930, the number had fallen to 621. Along with warm bodies, the college lost $16,000 in tuition, fees and room rent. There was talk of having to dismiss four professors.
Four professors without a job would be four families – in a town of 1,500 souls – with no income. Yes indeed. When the college twitched, the town shook.
But Gaines was leaving and the next president, Thurman D. Kitchin, would hew to the original purpose for the college.
The town commissioners could turn again to arguments about street trees and Sunday laws and to making decisions about electricity. They ordered Oscar MacKaughan, the superintendent of lights, water and sewer (salary $3,000 a year), to let the street lights burn until daylight.
The town had decided to plant street trees along the new national highway (U.S. 1) through town. It was completed in 1923 after a fierce battle with the highway engineers who wanted to run the road straight through the campus. The first choice was pin oaks, but then that changed to willow oaks along North Main Street and Norway maples along South Main. Finally, after what was apparently another discussion, E.W. Timberlake Jr., a member and secretary of the town board and dean of the college, crossed out the word Norway in the minutes.
Sunday laws – what stores could be open and sell what – were difficult in a college town with no college cafeteria. Students had to eat, and they ate at boarding houses and in cafes and restaurants. Early in the decade, the town only allowed druggists to sell prescriptions and an unnamed person to sell funeral supplies on Sundays. The next relaxation was to allow cafes and restaurants to remain open, but there was a lot of opposition. The town commissioners even thought of holding a vote on the question but backed off that suggestion. By the end of the decade, drug stores, cafes and restaurants could be open certain hours, garages could open for emergency repairs and some shops could open to sell funeral supplies.
But you would be violating a town ordinance if you played your Victrola (identified as such in the town board minutes) loud enough on a Sunday so your neighbors could hear it.
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