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Historic home plays role in MU property acquisition
The former WV Colored Children’s Home that is on the National Historic Register and is located on MU property is being sought by both Prestera Center and the Cabell County Board of Education. The home sits on the same proprerty as the University Heights apartments along U.S. 60 between Huntington and Barboursville.
Purchase this photoHUNTINGTON -- Prestera Center and the Cabell County Board of Education both hope to acquire the Marshall University property along U.S. Route 60. But with it comes the former West Virginia Colored Children's Home, put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
Prestera Center's Executive Director Bob Hansen said at a public hearing last week that the nearly 86-year-old structure, along with the three apartment buildings and small house that make up University Heights, would be renovated so short- and long-term drug treatment housing could be provided.
Hansen said the historical building would be renovated to accommodate expanded living for patients who need stays of six months up to two years.
The school board wants the property to build a new middle school for Enslow and Beverly Hills, but it would have to demolish all five buildings on the hill.
Two entities. Two different plans. One historic home.
According to Susan Pierce, the director of the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, any changes, renovations or demolition would have to go through a review process if any state or federal grants would be used.
"We have the right to comment on projects, but not the right to veto," Pierce said. "They just have to demonstrate that they've considered alternatives to avoid adverse effects to the historic site."
The three-story home with large white pillars, said Superintendent William Smith and board member Suzanne Oxley, was built on a large tract of land that West Virginia Legislature appointed in 1911 for the educational purposes of colored children. Marshall continued the tradition of education when the land was transferred to the university in 1961.
"The property has a rich history of educational purposes," Oxley said. "There's always been an educational purpose for this land."
She and Smith argue that purpose could continue if the Marshall University Board of Governors accepts the school board's $1.8 million offer.
Karen Nance, secretary of the Greenbottom Society, said demolishing the building would require a lot of extra time and public meetings. She said it would require mitigation and public comment so the story of the orphanage would continue on.
"It's very important to save our heritage," Nance said at a recent MU public hearing regarding the University Heights property.
Pierce said both parties would be subject to a review because the building's historical significance could be adversely affected by each party's plans. Even Prestera Center's renovation plans, she said, could have historical impact.
"If they are going to rehab or change the building, we would look at whether the plans would change the historic impact of the building," Pierce said, adding that replacing door frames or entry ways could have an adverse effect, historically speaking.
Because the school board wants to demolish the building, Pierce said preserving the history could mean an exhibit in the school with photos and even an oral history.
"That's all in terms of how to mitigate the loss of the building," she said.
Smith said he is in favor of at least a plaque either inside the school or outside the main entrance.
According to the nomination form submitted to the National Register of Historic Places, the West Virginia Colored Children's Home was originally founded as the West Virginia Normal and Industrial School for Colored Children in Bluefield in the late 1800s. The Huntington facility was the last of a series of buildings that were constructed to hold the state's first social institution exclusively serving the needs of black residents.
The facility's dedication to the use of educational and vocational training reflected changing ideas about the most effective methods of preparing wards of the state for productive lives. The efforts of the home's founder, The Rev. Charles Edmond McGhee, to create opportunities for the education of West Virginia's black children shared common ideals with the self-improvement tenets espoused in other black vocational schools across the country during the late 19th century.
The building is significant in the areas of social history, education and ethnic heritage as a physical representation of the institution's longstanding role in the provision of social services and education to the state's black community, the nomination form stated.
"The (review) process requires that people stop and think about what they are doing," Pierce said.
The building is now used for storage but housed residents as recently as December.
The Marshall University Board of Governors meets Friday, Sept. 12, and could decide whether to sell the property to either Prestera or the county school system. Prestera Center's offer of $1.7 million is contingent upon a multi-million dollar grant and loan request, which isn't likely to be approved until November, if it is approved at all.
