Geer Hall and Campus Drive

You are standing on the site of Geer Hall. This is the corner where the entry road to campus (off University Ridge) would have started, curving around back toward Manly Field. Along the way, you would pass Fletcher Hall, Judson Cottage (which became the Infirmary), and the Gymnasium. On your left, the Old Main (Richard Furman Hall), the Doughboy, and Carnegie Library (which you'll learn about next).

The university often repurposed buildings. Behind Geer Hall (along University Ridge where you just walked) was the home of Dr. Fletcher, which became a student dorm. Griffith held the "Refectory"--the dining hall). Judson Cottage became the infirmary before it moved to the President's House, and then the art department!

Let's focus on Geer Hall. Bennette E. Geer was Furman’s president from 1933 to 1938, only five years, but made a tremendous impact through his work during the Depression to achieve social progress in the Greenville area. You also may recall he was central in the arboretum as a Great-Depression-era project. Again and again, his goal was social uplift for the entire Greenville area.

Perhaps that sense of philanthropy was born from the fact that Bennette and his brother John Geer, for whom this dorm was named, were textile magnates, and had much to offer. When his brother John passed away, Bennette quit school to become president of the Easley & Alice Cotton Mills, in Easley, one of the biggest cotton manufacturers in the south at that time.

To fund campus improvements, future-President Bennette Geer donated $300,000 to the advancement of the campus ($3.6 million today), which included the gift of the dorm that was named after his brother. The old campus’ Geer Hall was completed, after two years of construction, in 1921, and cost a sum of $275,000--the majority of the gift.

The original dormitory was very modern for the time period in which it was built. The layout consisted of a small study room in-between two rooms on either side, something rare in its time.

Perhaps it should be mentioned that Geer's gifts to Furman did not stop with this dorm. Most importantly of all, Geer managed James B. Duke's dozens of factories and assets in Greenville; requesting from his friend that the university become a Duke Endowment school, Geer ensured the solvency of the institution to this day.