In the late 1800s, the West End was anything but restaurants + art studios. Instead, a 16-acre women’s college overlooked the Reedy River, spanning from Camperdown to River St.
Greenville’s First Presbyterian Church decided to establish a women’s college called Chicora College in 1893, starting with only $1,000 to pay for a rental house on McBee Ave. Once funding increased, they bought McBee Terrace on the west bank of the Reedy River and later added a 1200-seat domed auditorium, dormitory + admin buildings, and a president’s house to the campus plan.
You probably guessed it – Chicora Alley now sits at the spot. Chicora Alley’s back entrance opens onto Boggs St., which was called Chicora St. in its college days. (The name “Chicora” goes back all the way to the coastal Chicora tribe, one of the first encountered by explorers on the east coast.)
All-male colleges at the time were mainly seminaries or military schools at the time. Furman was a men’s academy and theological school until 1933 + Clemson was established as a military school for men in 1893 and converted to co-ed in 1955. Meanwhile, the ladies at Chicora College were learning everything from business skills (a.k.a. typewriting and bookkeeping) to music + photography.
It wasn’t exactly dorm sleepovers and all-nighters… women attending Chicora weren’t allowed to speak or write letters on Sundays + no young men could write, talk to, or visit students. The annual tuition was $38, though, so maybe it was worth it.
Chicora College was established right near the end of the West End’s development boom from the 1930s-1950s. The development of cotton warehouses made the West End a hot commercial area, nearby Furman sparked residential development + the first train on the Greenville and Columbia Railroad reached the West End. The stretch of land by the Reedy River was the perfect location to set up Chicora.
By the turn of the century, textile mills near the Reedy were beginning to struggle + new mills were opening further away from the city. Things started to change in the West End – including Chicora College. The school moved to Columbia in 1915, taking residence in the Hampton-Preston House, the former home of another Presbyterian women’s college.
However, the Presbyterian group that started Chicora College recommended it move again in the 1930s. Chicora merged with Charlotte, N.C.’s Queens College, and was known as Queens-Chicora College from 1930-1939.
Today it’s called simply Queens College, but Chicora’s motto is still used: Non ministrari sed ministrare (Not to be served, but to serve). The buildings that housed Chicora College on the Reedy burned in 1919, but the legacy lives on – next time you’re digging into some nachos at Chicora Alley, you’ll know the history behind the land you’re on.
