History Spotlight: The Rose Hill School

SOURCE: Rose Hill School, National Register of Historic Places Nomination. Prepared by Regina Brewer, 2021.

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The home known as Rosemont was originally built in 1835 for Thacker Howard. It was one of the most beautiful homes in the neighborhood that would become Rose Hill. It was located at 629 20th Street with the house and grounds placed in the forks of the Talbotton and Hamilton Roads. It was owned for many years by Mr. and Mrs. James C. Cook, Jr. Mrs. Cook (Mary Louisa Redd) planted beautiful rose gardens.

During the latter part of the 19th century, Columbus recovered from the ravages of the Civil War much more quickly than many other southern cities as entrepreneurs arrived in Columbus and immediately rebuilt their businesses. Foundries and textile mills were back in operation by 1865, and by 1870, more than 100 manufacturers operated within the city. Public spaces were improved with parks and playgrounds, and in 1871, Columbus opened the Springer Opera House. During this heady time, foundries and mills increased production 339 percent.

As economic opportunities expanded in the city, so did the population, and by extension, the housing stock. Wealthy and middle-class suburban neighborhoods were created including Waverly Terrace, Peacock Woods, Wynnton Village, Rose Hill, and many more. As the number of homes multiplied, the need for quality schools became evident.

Located to the north of the city of Columbus, the area known as Rose Hill was situated on the old stagecoach road that ran from Macon through Thomaston on its way to Columbus. The rolling hills and transportation convenience attracted several wealthy men, who would become some of the area’s most prominent business, social, civic, and professional leaders and go on to build elegant houses in the neighborhood.

Rose Hill was named by Mary Louise Redd Cook, who owned the Rosemont estate (1835) with her husband James C. Cook, Jr. Rosemont, located at 629 20th Street, had extensive Cherokee Rose gardens on the grounds, as did several of the neighboring large estates at the time. At the end of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, the large estates in Rose Hill were subdivided into much smaller lots, and the houses that were built on those lots are largely what exists today. In 1887, the Columbus city council requested that the Georgia Assembly amend the city charter to allow annexation of the Rose Hill neighborhood, which was finally approved in 1889.

Significant to the Rose Hill neighborhood, and the city of Columbus, is the Alma Thomas House which was constructed in the exclusively White neighborhood circa 1889 by Amelia Canty and John Harris Thomas, a locally prominent upper middle class African American couple. Their daughter, Alma Thomas, was born in the house in 1891 and is considered a leading figure in abstract color painting. National recognition led to her being the first African American woman to have a solo art exhibit at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City in 1972. The Alma Thomas House is just west of the Rose Hill School on 21st Street and listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a nationally significant resource in the areas of art and women’s history, and locally significant in the area of architecture.

These are images of homes in Rose Hill taken in the 1980s.

Above: 2026 6th Avenue and 2018 6th Avenue

Below: 2209 Hamilton Road and 2300 Hamilton Road

Above: South of Rosemont was the 17-acre estate of Albert Gresham Redd. He built the English Gothic Revival home in 1859. There were originally seventeen rooms in the home, in addition to a ballroom. It was one of the most unique homes in Columbus. In 1925, four rooms were sliced off and made into a separate house with a garden. The Redd House was demolished in 1955 to become a parking lot.

Below: The survey and layout of the school.

In 1884, a meeting was held at the Newman’s Pavilion to discuss constructing a school for the White children in the Rose Hill neighborhood. Residents of the Rose Hill neighborhood contributed money to purchase a building lot, and a two-room wood-frame schoolhouse was constructed and named the Rose Hill Academy. The trustees of the school mortgaged the lot and building. However, they failed to pay off the mortgage and the foreclosed lot and building was purchased by T. L. Gruzard, who then sold it to J. W. Favors & Company in 1888. Favors & Company purchased three additional adjoining lots in 1891.

In 1889, when the Rose Hill neighborhood was annexed into the city of Columbus, the school was absorbed by the Columbus Public School System. At that time, the school system purchased the property for $5,000. The lot fronted 21st Street at the corner of 21st and 5th Avenue. By 1889, the original wood-frame schoolhouse had been expanded with the addition of two more rooms and an upper-story. However, a bigger school was needed. The school board engaged the services of local architect T.W. Smith to design a new elementary school at the site, with an estimated construction cost of $18,000.

Upon its completion, the Rose Hill School building was among the largest schools in Columbus, with more classrooms than any other school. As reported in the Columbus Enquirer-Sun on the day the cornerstone was laid, “The new school building will be one of the largest and handsomest in the city and will have a number of modern features which will render it superior in some respects to some of the others.”

Between 1951 and 1953, 5th Avenue, which ran along the eastern property line, was closed. This allowed three lots to be purchased and consolidated for additional playground space and the construction of the new cafetorium. The Rose Hill School campus consists of the 1900 Romanesque Revival school building, designed by Thomas Williams Smith (T.W. Smith), and the 1954 International Style cafetorium, which was designed by E. Oren Smith, the son of T.W. Smith.

Thomas W. Smith was born on July 15, 1860, in Columbus, Mississippi. He graduated with honors from the University of Mississippi and joined his father, William Schley Smith, who had a successful architecture firm in Birmingham, Alabama. Skilled in both architecture and engineering, T.W. Smith moved to Columbus in 1889 and set up his own architectural firm, T.W. Smith and Company. According to his 1926 obituary in the Columbus Enquirer-Sun, “In 1912, Mr. Smith, who was one of the pioneer architects of the south, was one of the leading spirits in organizing the first association of architects in this state.” Smith later served on the Georgia State Board of Examination and Registration for architects. In addition to Rose Hill School, his notable buildings include Rose Hill United Methodist Church (1908), Waverly Terrace Elementary School (1920), Valdosta High School (1905), Rose Hill Presbyterian Church (1900), and the United Congregationalist Church (1909).

E. Oren Smith was born in Dawson, Georgia on August 19, 1892, but spent most of his life in Columbus, Georgia. He attended Rose Hill School, Columbus High School, and the Columbus Industrial School. He graduated in 1915 from Georgia Institute of Technology as a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity with a degree in architecture. He served in officer’s training camp at Fort McPherson, Georgia but was honorably discharged due to illness. He returned to Columbus and joined his father’s firm, T.W. Smith and Company until his father’s death in 1926, whereupon he opened his own firm, Smith and Biggers. In addition to designing the Rose Hill cafetorium, E. Oren Smith specialized in industrial architecture and designed buildings for the Well’s Flav-o-Rich Dairies and Royal Crown Cola companies. He also designed Hardaway High School (1969), Clover Hill Junior High School (1958), the Peabody Housing Project (1940), and the Ledger-Enquirer Building (1931). Smith was a member of the American Institute of Architects and served on the State Board of Examination and Registration of architects for 30 years. He was a Mason, Knights Templar, a Shriner, and a Rotarian, as well as serving as a board member for the Bradley Museum of Arts and Crafts.

The school floorplan includes 11 classrooms and cloakrooms connected to a central open space for circulation on each floor and the east and west staircases. These staircases extend from the basement to the second floor. There are also 2 single flights of stairs leading up to the first floor from the main entrances on the façade at ground level. These stairs flank the principal’s office and open into a central circulation area. Large segmentally arched openings indicate the path to these stairs from the circulation are (photograph 8). The first floor has 5 classrooms, 5 connected cloakrooms, the principal’s office and a storage room. The second floor has 6 classrooms (what was originally the library, but became Classroom G), five connected cloakrooms, a small bathroom, and a janitor’s closet. The basement has a library, bathrooms, teacher’s lounge, an additional classroom, and storage space The layout of the first and second floors is largely original to the 1900 construction, but the basement was not finished until 1954.

Below: The 1954 cafetorium is an International style one-story flat-roofed rectangular building constructed on slab. The term “cafetorium,” coined in 1952, is a portmanteau, combining its use as a cafeteria and an auditorium.

A 1958-1959 report to the trustees of the school states that at that time, the school had 11 teachers and a principal. It goes on to report that the new cafetorium served lunch to 255 student per day and “the government reimburses us four cents per plate and four cents per bottle of milk.” The report notes that the homes in the neighborhood are “average in the socio-economic bracket” and many of the homes are rented or have rented furnished rooms. The school had 53 students from military families, and the majority of the other students were from mill worker families.

On June 5, 1990, Rose Hill School closed its doors as a standard public school and became Rose Hill Center, an alternative school for students who had committed severe violations against the school district’s behavior code. A June 1990 article in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer noted the building’s cornerstone had been recently removed. This time capsule revealed newspaper articles reporting on the school’s opening and various coins including a Confederate War commemorative piece.

In 2012, the school was permanently closed. In January 2025, the school board sold the property to Olympia Development, LLC. According to their consultant, the intent is to renovate the historic school building for affordable housing units.