Georgia Military College - History

History

Georgia Military College was created in 1879 by act of the Georgia General Assembly "to educate young men and women from the Middle Georgia area in an environment which fosters the qualities of good citizenship." It was the apparent intention of the General Assembly to establish the school as a unit of the slowly forming University System of Georgia. State property in Milledgeville, including the former state capital building which had been damaged by General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea", was loaned to the University of Georgia by the Act of 1879, and the Board of Trustees of the University of Georgia was given veto powers by this Act over the acts of the local Board of Trustees of the new institution. The school was originally called Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College and was ceded state government lands surrounding the Old Capitol Building, the seat of government for the state of Georgia from 1807-1868. The Old Capitol Building, then as now, is the main college facility and sits on the highest point in Milledgeville. Former Confederate general Daniel Harvey Hill served as president from 1885 until August 1889, when he resigned due to failing health. (He died in Charlotte, NC on September 24, 1889.) The 1890 graduating class was the first to have female students.

The college's intended purpose was to enable graduates to enter higher classes at the University of Georgia, to give training in agriculture and mining, and, finally, to train teachers.

The name of the school was changed to Georgia Military College in 1900. Legislative acts of 1920 and 1922 severed the relationship with the University of Georgia and gave the local Board total power over the operations of the school. In 1922 as well the method of electing members of the Board of Trustees and filling vacancies on the board was changed. This act provided for a seven-member board to be elected from and by the citizens of Milledgeville with terms of the Trustees staggered to provide continuity. In 1930 the official addition of a junior college division to the college-preparatory secondary school finally justified its name. In 1950 the Defense Department designated the institution a "Military Junior College." Today it is one of only six remaining US military junior colleges so designated.