Garland Hall; a university classroom building named for Landon Cabell Garland
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Garland, Landon Cabell
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Garland Hall; a university classroom building named for Landon Cabell Garland
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Garland Hall was constructed in 1888, as part of an effort to rebuild the University of Alabama following the university’s near complete destruction in 1865 by Union troops. It was designed by New Orleans architect William A. Freret, following the base design and layout of neighboring buildings begun by architect James T. Murfee. The building originally housed a geological museum on the first floor, a dormitory on the second floor, and the Young Men’s Christian Association on the top floor. The newly constructed hall was christened Garland Hall, after Landon C. Garland, an English professor at the University from 1847 to 1855, and the president of the University from 1855 to 1867. Garland was one of the first to campaign for the University to become a military school and served as the Superintendent of the Alabama Corps of Cadets during the Civil War. Under his leadership, the University trained Confederate officers during the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War, Garland enslaved at least 60 people. In a lecture while he was a professor at the university, Garland said “the negro has, through slavery, been taken up from a condition of grossest barbarity and ignorance, made serviceable to himself and to the world, and elevated and improved socially, morally, intellectually and physically.” Following the aftermath of the Civil War and the destruction of the University of Alabama campus, Garland would later go on to be a professor at the University of Mississippi, and the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University. Today, Garland Hall houses the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art on the first floor, and classrooms and offices on the second and third floors.
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Garland Hall is a three storied inward facing building, with exterior hallways and staircases. The building makes up the southeast border of Woods Quad. The style of the building is High Victorian Gothic, featuring gigantic order arched windows at the corners, steeply pitched gable roofs, string courses, and terra-cotta ornamental plaques on the façade and underneath the gables. The building is primarily constructed out of brick, which is visible from the exterior, as well as sandstone, cement, and masonry. The exterior hallways on the interior facing side of the hall are surrounded by a decorative wrought iron railing, which matches the railing surrounding the exterior staircases.
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Garland Hall, 1888
Named for Landon Cabell Garland (1810-1895), third President of the University of Alabama (1855-1867) and Superintendent of the Alabama Corps of Cadets (1860-1865).
Under the military system Garland instituted, the University served as a training ground for Confederate officers during the Civil War. Considered "The West Point of the South," the University was largely destroyed by federal troops April 3-4, 1865.
A noted Professor of Physics, Astronomy, and Moral Philosophy, Garland later served as Chancellor of Vanderbilt University.
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Freret, William A.
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1888
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The University of Alabama Board of Trustees
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Louise Dowlen and Alfred Leland Crabb, Landon Cabell Garland: The Prince of Southern Educators (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1938).
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