AMMU 1927 - 1954 - THE BUILDER

1927-Joseph Fanning Drake

The Fourth President institutes a massive building program. He is irrevocably tagged with the name of "The Builder" due to his accomplishments in expanding the college physically and academically, even in the midst of the great depression of the 1930’s.
He built on the campus, through federal, foundation and state funds:

Councill Hall
Hurt Hall
Thigpen Hall
J. F. Drake Dining Hall
Bibb Graves Hall
The College Center
Grayson Hall
Annexes,
Walker Wood Hall
Carter Science Building
Vocational building,
Gymnasium,
Eight teachers cottages,
Faculty apartments,
Four Trades Buildings,
Twenty Farm Buildings,
The First Greenhouse.

1939-State Board of Education gives authority to offer course work on the senior
college level.
1949-Name changed to Alabama A&M College.
1954-Councill Federal Credit Union established.



Dr. Drake might also have well been called "The Savior" because only the efforts of his administration prevented the school from being entirely closed. So sure were the faculty and local residents that Dr. Drake had been sent to close the school that he found it necessary to remark quite often: "I did not come here to conduct the funeral of A&M." Besides buildings, Drake added 616.13 acres of land.

THE FOUNDER

Time has put the tag of "Founder" upon the first president: Dr. William Hooper Councill. His personal efforts in keeping the school in existence through use of his own money and foundation and personal gifts have earned him that narne. As a freed man at the age of 17, he obtained all of his education at great physical and mental expenditure and vowed that others should not pay such a price.



William Hooper Councill
1875-1909

Councill might well have come down in history as "The Pioneer of Industrial Education in the South," because he added industrial training in 1883 after the state had come out openly seeking industry to boost the still lagging economy of Alabama.

Although Booker T. Washington is given credit by some as the state’s industrial pioneer, it is a fact that Councill had been teaching at the Normal School six years before Washington came to Alabama, and the next year Councill added an industrial department to the normal school. He writes about this fact on October 24, 1883, in a letter to General Joe Wheeler, then Congressman from the district:

"We are adding an industrial department to our school, and our chances of getting aid from the Slater and Peabody Funds are in proportion to the success attained by this new addition," he wrote.

He might also have been called "the orator," for he was famous worldwide for this strenuously nurtured gift and moved many to contribute the money so vitally needed to keep the school open. He and his supporters succeeded in having it made the Negro land-grant college for Alabama and moved the campus to its present hillside location surrounded by tillable land.