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| Daniel School, circa 1961. Courtesy of the CNU Archives |
After The Architectural Ages of CNU, I felt remiss not covering the only building during the college’s first three years: the John W. Daniel School building. So here we are, coincidentally 50 years since its demolition, to share its tale.
Our story starts in 1899, when Central School opened on Thirty-Second Street in Newport News. It served as Newport News’ first permanent white high school, but held every other grade level as well.
Over the summer of 1910, with the deteriorating health of U.S. Senator and former Confederate Major John W. Daniel, the local John W. Daniel chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy was able to rename Central School in his honor. Daniel then passed away less than two weeks later.[1]
Our story starts in 1899, when Central School opened on Thirty-Second Street in Newport News. It served as Newport News’ first permanent white high school, but held every other grade level as well.
Over the summer of 1910, with the deteriorating health of U.S. Senator and former Confederate Major John W. Daniel, the local John W. Daniel chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy was able to rename Central School in his honor. Daniel then passed away less than two weeks later.[1]
On the evening of June 4, 1913, the school burned down in what was called the “biggest and most spectacular blaze this city has known since two of the Chesapeake and Ohio docks were destroyed seventeen years ago.” Young boys had broken into the basement and were playing with a stove burner when they accidentally pulled a rubber hose off of the gas main. The gas lit up instantly from the stove’s fire, frightening the boys safely away from the building. It spread to the rest of building before help could arrive. Low water pressure, oil varnish-soaked wooden floors, and a light breeze kept firefighters and Good-Samaritan navy sailors fighting the blaze for hours.[2]
Once the fire was put out, what remained was only the exterior brick shell of the school. It was determined it was too damaged to be reused. The school would be rebuilt, but it would take a year to replace it. With no other white high school in the city, high school-level students would share George Washington and Thomas Jefferson Schools with the elementary grades in a split-shift style: elementary school would take place in the mornings starting at 8am, then after a reset high school would start at 1pm. It was not an ideal situation for anyone involved, but being one key school building short, everyone made do.[3]
The new school building was designed by Charles M. Robinson (1867-1932), a prolific Virginian architect. He was responsible for many Virginian colleges’ buildings and master plans in the early 20th century, including those at James Madison University, Mary Washington University, the University of Richmond, and Radford University. Most notably, Robinson designed much of the Old Campus section of the College of William & Mary, future parent school to Christopher Newport College. Other buildings he designed included Thomas Jefferson High School and the Mosque (now Altria Theater) in Richmond; Masonic Lodge #6 in Williamsburg; and Newport News High School, the West Avenue Library, and Huntington High School in Newport News.[4]
The new $60,000 Daniel School opened in 1914. “In appearance, it resembles an almost perfect cube of dull red brick,” glowingly reported the Daily Press, “and were it not for the ornaments of the Thirty-first and Thirty-Second street entrances the building would be without any exterior decoration.” Regardless of a simple façade, they also said it was “a structure of which the city may justly feel proud.” The three-story building had 20 classrooms (6 more than the previous building), 6 basement classrooms, 2 recitation rooms, and an auditorium located on the top floor.[5]
The building was as fireproof as they could make at the time. Anything that required combustion was located in the basement, where the walls and ceiling were made with reinforced concrete. While the majority of the upper floors were still made of wood, the stairs were made of slate and steel in an effort to protect egress from the upper levels. One side of the building also featured a fire escape.[6]
During its first few years of operation, the new Daniel School taught all grades and contained the school system’s administrative offices. In 1918, the high school classes were moved to the new Walter Reed School, leaving the Daniel School with the elementary grades and administration. The building stayed in this capacity for the next four decades. [7]
In that time, Newport News grew and thrived, even consolidating with the City of Warwick. When a federal study recommended a junior college in the area, the City of Newport News offered up the Daniel School as a temporary home & $125,000 to renovate it if the college came to be. The Virginia General Assembly took them up on their offer, establishing Christopher Newport College in 1960 as a division of the Colleges of William and Mary. The Daniel School was loaned out for five years while a permanent site nearby was acquired.[8]
The Daniel School’s last day as a grade school was Monday, October 31, 1960. Much of the staff and faculty moved to the soon-to-open Reservoir Elementary School, while students were divvied between Magruder, Wilson, Jackson, and Reed schools. The school administration moved into a building on 22nd street.[9]
Christopher Newport College found the building in rough condition. College Director (later first president) H. Westcott “Scotty” Cunningham recalled,
“It was a typical old, old school, with ceilings that looked to me to be forty feet high, and I suspect they were at least thirty feet high, huge central corridor, rooms with wooden floors, great state of disrepair, plaster hanging from the walls, lighting fixtures askew. I walked into a classroom right across the hall, and it had an old, pockmarked green blackboard in it. Scribbled across the board were in yellow chalk was, THEY OUGHT TO BURN THIS PLACE.”[10]
A less-descriptive perspective during that same period described the building as “a simple, good, and basically sound one showing signs of age, hard wear, and minimal maintenance.”[11]
When construction bids came in for the building’s proposed renovation plan, they were all way over the $125,000 budget. So Cunningham himself worked over a weekend and drew new plans for the renovation. “They were very amateurish, but they got all the things accomplished,” he admitted. Local construction company W.M. Jordan won the bid with Cunningham’s plans for around $80,000. Renovation work started in April 1961, and the building was ready for staff and faculty occupation in July.[12]
On September 18, 1961, the Daniel School's bell rang once again, this time calling for college-age students. There were 155 students enrolled and 8 full-time instructors hired for that first day of Christopher Newport College. The playground outside had been paved over for parking. Inside between the plethora of classrooms were all the other needs of a college institution. The basement came with a fully-stocked fallout shelter, a starter library, and eventually a student lounge space. The library held a meager 97 books on the first day of classes, mostly donated from William & Mary. By the end of the college’s second year, it had amassed a collection of over 4,000. On the first floor were the college’s administrative offices. In 1962, the first floor also made space for the headquarters and galleries for the newly-founded Peninsula Arts Association (later known as the Peninsula Fine Arts Center, now replaced by the Mary M. Torggler Fine Arts Center). It most likely found space in the building due to Cunningham being on the association’s executive board. The second floor contained the schools two science labs and faculty offices. The third floor still held the ever-useful auditorium and lecture halls.[13]
Christopher Newport operated solely out of the Daniel School for 3 years. During that time, its enrollment grew, traditions began, and academic rigor was established. Also during that time, the City of Newport News was acquiring land along Shoe Lane for the permanent campus site. The first building, Christopher Newport Hall, opened in the fall of 1964. While most classes and offices moved into the new building, it had no specialized science lab space, so the Daniel school was still utilized for labs. Class scheduling that year had to take into account the travel time between the two buildings, over 7 miles apart from each other.[14]
Once the college’s science building Gosnold Hall opened in the fall of 1965, CNC returned the Daniel School to Newport News Public Schools. School administrative offices moved back into the space, giving it a minor renovation to include a telephone communication system involving switchboards. The building was described at the time as “very solid and well worth renovating.”[15]
After the current midtown administration offices opened in 1967, the school system mostly moved out of the Daniel building. They let other city departments and organizations use the building, including the Newport News Home Ownership Association and the Recreation and Parks department. Nearby Newport News High School used the building’s parking lot for faculty/staff parking.[16]
In 1969, the city offered the site as a new home to businesses that had been displaced from the city's downtown renewal project. Only one business showed any interest, which ultimately didn’t go anywhere. The Daniel School was now described as “difficult to maintain.” It was too underutilized to justify its running costs, including $5,000 a month to heat. In the end, the city decided to demolish it for off-street parking. And thus marked the end of the Daniel School. After an almost 60 year career, it was demolished in February 1973. The lot served as off-street parking until 2008, when it was redeveloped into part of a gated housing development.[17]
And that is the tale of the 1914 John W. Daniel School in Newport News, Virginia. A fireproof school that never burned, except to ignite both the birth of a college and the learning in generations of students.
Related CNC/CNU Articles
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[1] N.a. “FEW CHILDREN HERE NOT IN THE SCHOOLS,” Daily Press, 15 June 1910; “John W. Daniel,” Wikipedia, Retrieved April 24, 2023 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Daniel; “John W. Daniel School,” NNHS Class of 1965, Retrieved April 24, 2023, from http://www.nnhs65.com/daniel-school.html.
[2] N.a. “High School Building Prey To The Most Spectacular Fire City Has Known Since Chesapeake & Ohio Docks Burned,” Daily Press, 4 June 1913; N.a. “GAS IGNITED BY BOY CAUSED FIRE AT HIGH SCHOOL,” Daily Press, 5 June 1913.
[3] N.a “PLANS FOR NEW JOHN W. DANIEL SCHOOL APPROVED,” Daily Press, 17 September 1913; N.a. “SCHOOLS WILL OPEN AGAIN ON SEPTEMBER 8,” Daily Press, 31 August 1913; N.a. “Schools Open Sept. 8.,” Daily Press, 6 September 1913.
[4] Robinson, David B, “The Charles M. Robinson Story,” Charles M. Robinson, A Virginia Architectural History, Retrieved April 2023, from http://www.charlesmrobinson.com/history.html.
[5] N.a. “New School Building Places Newport News On The Educational Map,” Daily Press, 18 October 1914; N.a. “Detailed Cost of School,” Daily Press, 11 December 1914.
[6] N.a. “SCHOOL BUILDERS GIVEN TRUST PAYMENT,” Daily Press, 15 January 1914; N.a. “New School Building Places Newport News On The Educational Map,” Daily Press, 18 October 1914.
[7] N.a. “SCHOOLS TO OPEN MONDAY A WEEK,” Daily Press, 1 September 1918.
[8] Hamilton, Phillip, Serving the Old Dominion: A History of Christopher Newport University 1958-2011, First ed., University Press, 2011.
[9] N.a. “Doors of John W. Daniel Close After 61-Year Use,” Daily Press, 1 November 1960; N.a. “Daniel School Staff Offices A Busy Place,” Daily Press, 17 November 1965.
[10] Webb, Jane Carter, “1.8 D Interview Transcript: H. Wescott (Scotty) Cunningham,” SAIL - Smart Archiving for Institutional Learning, accessed April 8, 2023, https://sail.cnu.edu/omeka/items/show/5560.
[11] Chambers, Hubbard, Wood, Memories of Christopher Newport College the First Decade 1961 – 1971 in Words and Pictures, Hallmark Publishing Company, 2008.
[12] Webb, Jane Carter, “1.8 D Interview Transcript: H. Wescott (Scotty) Cunningham,” SAIL - Smart Archiving for Institutional Learning, accessed April 8, 2023, https://sail.cnu.edu/omeka/items/show/5560; N.a. “Christopher Newport Staff Will Move Here Next Week,” Daily Press, 19 July 1961; Greiff, John B. “Business News: Car Sales Roar To 18-Month High, First Quarter Up Also,” Daily Press, 17 April 1961.
[13] N.a. “World Of Local Artists Set For College Showing,” Daily Press, 25 October 1962; N.a. “Devotees Of Art Organize Group,” Daily Press, 29 May 1962; Hamilton, Phillip, Serving the Old Dominion: A History of Christopher Newport University 1958-2011, First ed., University Press, 2011.; Chambers, Hubbard, Wood, Memories of Christopher Newport College the First Decade 1961 – 1971 in Words and Pictures, Hallmark Publishing Company, 2008.
[14] N.a. “Date Tentatively Set To Dedicate Newport College,” Daily Press, 9 May 1965; Hamilton, Phillip, Serving the Old Dominion: A History of Christopher Newport University 1958-2011, First ed., University Press, 2011.
[15] N.a. “Daniel School Staff Offices A Busy Place,” Daily Press, 17 November 1965.
[16] Greiff, John “City Studies Site For OEO,” Daily Press, 8 June 1968; Getchell, Halver “Daniel School Razing Starts,” Daily Press, 16 February 1973.
[17] Wilson, Madge “City To Seek Proposals On School Tract,” The Times-Herald, 27 May 1969; N.a. “Only One Letter Received On Daniel School Property,” Daily Press, 15 July 1969; Greiff, John “City Studies Site For OEO,” Daily Press, 8 June 1968; Copeland, Scott “Tax Relief Bill To Be Redrawn,” Daily Press, 28 September 1971; N.a. “Schools Head Newport News Agenda,” Daily Press, 26 October 1971; N.a. “$209,760 Bid Received On Parking Lot,” Daily Press, 13 July 1972; Getchell, Halver “Daniel School Razing Starts,” Daily Press, 16 February 1973; Satellite imagery of Downtown Newport News from various periods, Google Earth, retrieved April 2023.
[2] N.a. “High School Building Prey To The Most Spectacular Fire City Has Known Since Chesapeake & Ohio Docks Burned,” Daily Press, 4 June 1913; N.a. “GAS IGNITED BY BOY CAUSED FIRE AT HIGH SCHOOL,” Daily Press, 5 June 1913.
[3] N.a “PLANS FOR NEW JOHN W. DANIEL SCHOOL APPROVED,” Daily Press, 17 September 1913; N.a. “SCHOOLS WILL OPEN AGAIN ON SEPTEMBER 8,” Daily Press, 31 August 1913; N.a. “Schools Open Sept. 8.,” Daily Press, 6 September 1913.
[4] Robinson, David B, “The Charles M. Robinson Story,” Charles M. Robinson, A Virginia Architectural History, Retrieved April 2023, from http://www.charlesmrobinson.com/history.html.
[5] N.a. “New School Building Places Newport News On The Educational Map,” Daily Press, 18 October 1914; N.a. “Detailed Cost of School,” Daily Press, 11 December 1914.
[6] N.a. “SCHOOL BUILDERS GIVEN TRUST PAYMENT,” Daily Press, 15 January 1914; N.a. “New School Building Places Newport News On The Educational Map,” Daily Press, 18 October 1914.
[7] N.a. “SCHOOLS TO OPEN MONDAY A WEEK,” Daily Press, 1 September 1918.
[8] Hamilton, Phillip, Serving the Old Dominion: A History of Christopher Newport University 1958-2011, First ed., University Press, 2011.
[9] N.a. “Doors of John W. Daniel Close After 61-Year Use,” Daily Press, 1 November 1960; N.a. “Daniel School Staff Offices A Busy Place,” Daily Press, 17 November 1965.
[10] Webb, Jane Carter, “1.8 D Interview Transcript: H. Wescott (Scotty) Cunningham,” SAIL - Smart Archiving for Institutional Learning, accessed April 8, 2023, https://sail.cnu.edu/omeka/items/show/5560.
[11] Chambers, Hubbard, Wood, Memories of Christopher Newport College the First Decade 1961 – 1971 in Words and Pictures, Hallmark Publishing Company, 2008.
[12] Webb, Jane Carter, “1.8 D Interview Transcript: H. Wescott (Scotty) Cunningham,” SAIL - Smart Archiving for Institutional Learning, accessed April 8, 2023, https://sail.cnu.edu/omeka/items/show/5560; N.a. “Christopher Newport Staff Will Move Here Next Week,” Daily Press, 19 July 1961; Greiff, John B. “Business News: Car Sales Roar To 18-Month High, First Quarter Up Also,” Daily Press, 17 April 1961.
[13] N.a. “World Of Local Artists Set For College Showing,” Daily Press, 25 October 1962; N.a. “Devotees Of Art Organize Group,” Daily Press, 29 May 1962; Hamilton, Phillip, Serving the Old Dominion: A History of Christopher Newport University 1958-2011, First ed., University Press, 2011.; Chambers, Hubbard, Wood, Memories of Christopher Newport College the First Decade 1961 – 1971 in Words and Pictures, Hallmark Publishing Company, 2008.
[14] N.a. “Date Tentatively Set To Dedicate Newport College,” Daily Press, 9 May 1965; Hamilton, Phillip, Serving the Old Dominion: A History of Christopher Newport University 1958-2011, First ed., University Press, 2011.
[15] N.a. “Daniel School Staff Offices A Busy Place,” Daily Press, 17 November 1965.
[16] Greiff, John “City Studies Site For OEO,” Daily Press, 8 June 1968; Getchell, Halver “Daniel School Razing Starts,” Daily Press, 16 February 1973.
[17] Wilson, Madge “City To Seek Proposals On School Tract,” The Times-Herald, 27 May 1969; N.a. “Only One Letter Received On Daniel School Property,” Daily Press, 15 July 1969; Greiff, John “City Studies Site For OEO,” Daily Press, 8 June 1968; Copeland, Scott “Tax Relief Bill To Be Redrawn,” Daily Press, 28 September 1971; N.a. “Schools Head Newport News Agenda,” Daily Press, 26 October 1971; N.a. “$209,760 Bid Received On Parking Lot,” Daily Press, 13 July 1972; Getchell, Halver “Daniel School Razing Starts,” Daily Press, 16 February 1973; Satellite imagery of Downtown Newport News from various periods, Google Earth, retrieved April 2023.
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