Wake Forest University - Howler Yearbook (Winston Salem, NC)

Page 12 text:

The steel skeleton of the chapel spire, rising starkly in the northwest suburbs, reminds Twin Citians that Wake Forest College is soon to arrive. Iii 1946, the veterans were returning to school and flocking to Wake Forest in record numbers. The old campus was bulging at the seams and an expansion program was in its initial stages. Foundations had been readied for two new buildings and the structural steel was already on the campus. Fate, however, destined that these founda- tions would be useless and that the steel would rust until removed to another building 1 10 miles westward. Rumors had swept the campus that the College had under considera- tion a giant financial ofler. Soon after, came the news that Trustees had voted to accept the ofler of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation of perpetual financial support it Wake Forest would move to Winston-Salem. The attrac- tiveness of the proposal was unique m edu- cational history. The challenge could not be turned down if the College was to have adequate resources for her future growth. So began a long road stretching to the West where the sun would not set, but instead shine brighter on Samuel Wait ' s school. In 1950, Harold Fribble came from Massa- chusetts to head the expanding institution which still had not broken ground tor a new campus. The master of the Reynolda campus soon took full control of the situation and the new building effort moved full speed ahead. Construction began in October 1951 and in June 1956 the first students enrolled on a campus planned eventually to serve 3,000. Winston-Salem accepted the College into her family and Wake Forest reciprocated. A bustling city in the heartland of the nation ' s fastest-growing region now had a first-rate college to nurture, and support, and take pride in. She had left a small cotton-mill vil- lage to come to the home of the Southeast ' s largest bank, the nation ' s largest tobacco fac- tory, and the continent ' s premiere area-air- lines. This indeed was transition. Still, a bit of the old came to the new. The green grass, the shade trees, the lofty and spreading magnolias, and the cool beauty seemed in some special way to have made the trip also. And placed in a corner off to itself, as before, stood Bostwick Dorm — its white columns missing but its bricks strik- ingly clean and its coeds again the residents.

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For one hundred and twenty-two years Wake Forest, North Carolina was the home of what finally became known as Wake Forest College. In the byways of a small town began a small college full of personality and memories not so much for the present generation, but for those who have made the glories of the present possible. Today at the old well where the students gathered after classes and where the academic processions formed, a moss- covered fountain remains to greet the theologians wandering about. To the south is I lunter Dormitory, the only men ' s residence hall on campus. And far on the other side of the magnolia-dotted acres stands Bostwick Dormitory, which first opened in 1925 for male students but turned into the first women ' s residence hall when the war forced admission of coeds in 1942. Stately it stands among the shrubs and dogwoods, the home for many in the past. Throughout the tradition-laden campus, eight years ago departed by the College, brick walks accented by moss and lichens stretch like rich carpets, rich with those who have walked their paths. No doubt, it was on one of these that Dr. William B. Royall made his classic statement that he didn ' t care it Wake Forest didn ' t turn out scholars, so long as she turned out men. How true of her purpose and her record. Moss and magnolia bum caver the brick walk -..here students Inr.r trudged to and from classes since 1134.

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ir.ii Chapel provides a commanding focal point m the new campus, standing ,it the head of the Plaza