Kumler Hall
National Register Listing
Street Address:
Lancaster and Cemetery Sts., Chester, SC (Chester County)
Alternate Name:
Brainerd Institute
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817712013
Description and Narrative:
Brainerd Institute was one of the earliest and finest of the many private schools established for freedmen in South Carolina in the years just after the Civil War. Brainerd was operated from ca.1868 until 1940 by the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church, USA and offered vocational, industrial, mechanical, classical college preparatory, and teacher training. From 1868 until the turn of the century Brainerd provided the only schooling available for black children in Chester, and it provided the only high school until the 1920s. Brainerd occupied several locations before finally settling on the present site, the old DeGraffenreid land, where the mansion house was utilized as the main building. Two vacant and rapidly deteriorating buildings are the only remnants of the once active twenty-one acre campus, Kumler Hall and the ca. 1900 Martha Tweed Administration Building, which is in ruinous condition. Only Kumler Hall, a ca. 1916 brick two-story boys dormitory, retains sufficient structural and architectural integrity to meet National Register criteria. Kumler Hall has a central longitudinal hallway opening onto the porch, with a central single-flight stairway and classrooms and dormitory rooms opening on either side on both floors and the basement. The floors are wooden and the ceilings are plaster. The building is significant as the only intact physical reminder of one of the finest and most successful elements of this unique educational system for blacks. Listed in the National Register January 27, 1983.
Period of Significance:
circa 1916;20th century
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Education;Ethnic Heritage: Black
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
January 27 1983
