By Staff
I thought I would give you an account written by the son of Dr. J.M. Shofner who founded Downing-Shofner School in East Brewton. Wilellen Elliott was kind enough to share a letter from both a son and a daughter. I am using the one written by the son, Frank Nelson Shofner, as it has a reference to something that I once saw on the bluff overlooking the creek.
The next of the buildings was the Pauline Taylor Hall. I enjoyed this immensely, watching the hustle and bustle of the first brick building. The laborers tossing the brick up to the high scaffolds where the bricklayers were busy taking the walls ever higher. The building was completed in due course, housing the presidents office, a big entrance hall, one classroom and a long hall with stairs at each end going up to the auditorium where morning devotions, Wednesday night prayer meetings and Sunday services were held. Later an addition was made for a new auditorium upstairs and a library and domestic sciences on the ground floor. When this was finished, the old auditorium was divided into three new classrooms, to accommodate the fast growing student body.