NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION NFS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 OLD MEDICAL COLLEGE Page 1 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service_____________________________________National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 1. NAME OF PROPERTY Historic Name: OLD MEDICAL COLLEGE Other Name/Site Number: Medical College of Georgia 2. LOCATION Street & Number: 598 Telfair Street Not for publication: City/Town: Augusta Vicinity: State: GA County: Richmond Code: 245 Zip Code: 30901 3. CLASSIFICATION Ownership of Property Category of Property Private: X Buildingfs): X Public-Local:__ District:__ Public-State:__ Site:__ Public-Federal: Structure: Object: Number of Resources within Property Contributing Noncontributing 1 ___ buildings ___ sites __1_ structures 2 objects 1 3 Total Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register: 1 Name of Related Multiple Property Listing: NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 OLD MEDICAL COLLEGE Page 2 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service_____________________________________National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this __ nomination __ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ___ meets __ does not meet the National Register Criteria. Signature of Certifying Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau In my opinion, the property __ meets __ does not meet the National Register criteria. Signature of Commenting or Other Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau 5. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that this property is: __ Entered in the National Register Determined eligible for the National Register _ Determined not eligible for the National Register Removed from the National Register ______ Other (explain): __________________ Signature of Keeper Date of Action NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMBNo. 1024-0018 OLD MEDICAL COLLEGE Page 3 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 6. FUNCTION OR USE Historic: EDUCATION Sub: College Current: RECREATION & CULTURE Sub: Museum Auditorium 7. DESCRIPTION ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION: Greek Revival MATERIALS: Foundation: Brick Walls: Stucco Roof: Metal Other: Limestone (window sills) Stone (front steps) NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 OLD MEDICAL COLLEGE Page 4 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service_____________________________________National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Describe Present and Historic Physical Appearance. The Old Medical College Building was designed and built by one of the nation's earliest trained architects, Charles Blaney Cluskey, who was one of the practitioners of the "new style" Greek Revival. The OMC building, stunning in its classic proportions in 1835, still gives the visitor the same impression today. Charles Blaney Cluskey (ca. 1808-1871) designed the Georgia Governor's Mansion (a National Historic Landmark) in Milledgeville and a number of other residences in Savannah and St. Simon's Island, Georgia, Galveston, Texas, and Washington, DC.1 Cluskey designed and constructed (for $14,567) the functional, attractive building on the corner of Telfair and Sixth Streets. Completed in 1835, it contained ample lecture rooms, a museum, a library, and dissecting rooms. (Bones and skeletons dating back to the mid-19th century, unearthed in the OMC building's basement during its 1989 renovation, attest to the authenticity of the MCG's early anatomy program.2) Two contemporary descriptions of the building's interior convey an image of the excellence of the new facilities. The Augusta Chronicle for October 24, 1834, reported: The interior contains a wide passage from front to rear-a large rotunda from the floor to the dome, containing a circular staircase to the second story three large lecture rooms, two of them with raised seats-a laboratory-a dissecting room-a museum, furnished with an extensive variety of specimens, anatomical, mineralogical, etc., beautifully arranged and presenting a most attractive and pleasing appearance and several anterooms and private apartments-the whole now finishing in a tasteful and elegant style, and to be suitably warmed throughout with hot air pipes an improvement most important and desirable. A few years later, the following appeared in the August 1837 issue of the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal: 1 On Cluskey's life and work, including the OMC building at MCG, see "Charles Blaney Cluskey," in Dictionary of Georgia Biography, eds. Kenneth Coleman and Charles Stephen Gurr (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983), p.201; Mills Lane, Architecture of the Old South: Georgia (New York: Abbeville Press, 1944, p. 138; Donald J. Jehman, "Lucky Landmark: A Study of a Design and Its Survival, The Galveston Customhouse, Post Office, and Courthouse of 1861," General Services Administration (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1973); Russell R. Moores, "The Medical College of Georgia's Venerable Old Lady," Ancestoring 9 (1984), 16-28; Spalding, History of the Medical College of Georgia, pp.29-30; Florence Fleming Corley, "The Old Medical College and the Old Governor's Mansion: Two Early Greek Revival Public Buildings in Georgia," Richmond County History, 8 (Summer 1976), 5- 22. 2 Dr. Robert L. Blakely, "Preliminary Report on an Emergency Archeological Investigation at the Old Medical College of Georgia Building, Augusta," Department of Anthropology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, 8 September 1989. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 OLD MEDICAL COLLEGE Page 5 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service_____________________________________National Register of Historic Places Registration Form ...its laboratory and library rooms are spacious, and its suite of lecture rooms is ample for the accommodation of 250 pupils, and affords the student the comfortable opportunity of changing rooms between each lecture as constantly as the subjects will allow.... Two large rooms are appropriated to the museum, another to microscopic observation... and another ...to the preparation room for the lectures on anatomy and surgery. Based on the standards described by a recent historian of medical education, the facilities contained in the building compared quite favorably with those provided at typical antebellum medical schools around the country, and exceeded them in the number of lecture halls and provision for a school library:3 The typical medical school before the Civil War was housed in one main building with two lecture halls. The lecture hall on the lower floor was used for chemistry, materia medica, and theory and practice of medicine. The upper lecture hall, which had a skylight, was used for anatomy, physiology, and surgery. The same or another building held facilities for dissection, a chemistry laboratory, offices for the faculty, and a museum of anatomical specimens and materia medica. Libraries were usually the personal possession of faculty members. Cluskey's unique and distinctive Greek Revival building not only satisfied all the school's teaching space and design needs for years to come, it also immediately became a landmark in Augusta that visitors and residents alike proudly pointed to. As one visitor said in 1838 of the building's outside appearance: "Oh that fine range of fluted pillars along the whole front looks so superbly simple & grand! it is classic taste!"4 When the Medical College of Georgia moved to its upgraded facilities in 1913, the OMC building reverted to the Trustees of the Academy of Richmond County, who used the building for expansion of its technical school. (Richmond Academy owned the 1801 Gothic Revival building next door to the east. Richmond Academy had given the tract of land for the OMC building, along with $10,000 from the State of Georgia and $5,000 from the City of Augusta for construction.) Shortly thereafter, the Academy removed the circular mahogany stairwell and used the balusters to make walking sticks for the Trustees. In addition, partition walls on the first floor were removed, creating one large room to house equipment for vocational education. Shop machines were installed on the first floor, with two-by-two holes cut in the floor for belts to run to basement electric motors. The amphitheater (solarium) held forges for metal workings. Mechanical drawing classes took place upstairs. 3 Rothstein, American Medical Schools and the Practice of Medicine, pp. 50-51. 4 Edward J. Cashin, The History of Augusta (Augusta: Richmond County Board of Education, 1980), p. 77. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 OLD MEDICAL COLLEGE Page 6 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service_____________________________________National Register of Historic Places Registration Form It is believed that flooring was constructed on the second floor level to close up the view of the rotunda and the dome at