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Lees-McRae's Distinguished History
“Banner’s Elk,” as the village was once called, is
said to have been settled around 1850. By the end of the century, the
Presbyterian Church was becoming established in the area and in the
summer of 1895 Concord Presbytery sent a young student from Union
Theological Seminary in Virginia to organize a church at Banner Elk. In
1897, newly ordained, the Reverend Edgar Tufts returned as pastor of the
church and remained to serve the community until his death in 1923.
In the winter of 1899, concerned with the limited offering of the
district school which was supplemented only by summer school work
conducted by the church, Mr. Tufts took some of the young people of the
neighborhood into his study for further instruction. This small group,
called the Class of 1900, marks the beginning of Lees-McRae College.
Mr. Tufts saw, however, that this effort was not enough and that there
was a need for a boarding school, especially for the girls of the
mountain region. A small amount of money was raised at a prayer meeting
and the promise of lumber and labor made possible the opening in 1900 of
a frame dormitory for fourteen girls and one teacher. One of the summer
school teachers was Elizabeth A. McRae, originally of South Carolina,
who had been sent to Banner Elk by Fayetteville Presbytery. Knowing the
devoted character of her work, Mr. Tufts, named the institute for her. A
few years later, after a boys' department had been opened at Plumtree,
he added the name of Mrs. McRae’s friend, Mrs. S.P. Lees of Kentucky and
New York, who had been a generous benefactor. The schools were chartered
by the state in 1907 as the Lees-McRae Institute. In 1927 Lees-McRae
became coeducational when the boys unit was moved to Banner Elk after
the buildings at Plumtree had been destroyed by fire.
Lees-McRae Institute became Lees-McRae College in 1931, gradually
eliminating the high school department to form an accredited,
coeducational junior college. In 1987 the Board of Trustees of
Lees-McRae College voted to seek senior college status. In June of 1990
the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and
Schools granted Lees-McRae status as a senior (four-year) college.
The 1990’s were a decade of change as the college expanded course
offerings and upgraded facilities. In 1999 Dr. Earl J. Robinson was
inaugurated as the twelfth president of Lees-McRae College, marking a
“New Era” in the college’s history. In September 2000, the college
celebrated its centennial. After a hundred years of steady growth, the
college enjoys local, state, and national recognition, and looks forward
to its second century of excellence.
