Fort Valley College, Georgia

Predecessor to Fort Valley State College. The Fort Valley High and Industrial School at Fort Valley, Georgia, was chartered in 1895. Under its second principal, Henry A. Hunt (d. 1938), the trustees voted on Nov. 11, 1918, to place the school under the auspices of the Diocese of Atlanta, with the Bishop of Atlanta as chairman of the board of trustees. In 1919 the school affiliated with the American Church Institute for Negroes of the Episcopal Church. The Diocese of Georgia joined the Diocese of Atlanta in 1928 in partial support of the school. Affiliation with the American Church Institute was discontinued in 1939 when the school passed from church to state control. On July 1, 1939, the State Teachers and Agricultural College at Forsyth, Georgia, merged with the Fort Valley High and Industrial School to create Fort Valley State College.