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GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION 8V MARY P1NCKEY WATERS/THE GAMECOCK PHOTO BY MORGAN FORD/THE GAMECOCK Former students, university leaders reminisce about the \Shoe All quotations from Carolina Voices, ed. By Caroline Matalene and Katherine Reynolds, USC Press, 2001 city water on the college campus, but it was sel of its offensive character, and both stu drew their supply from an open well in fron Bathing was a Saturday night affair at most as each student ha< to fill his tin tub witl buckets from thi well, heat the wate: CHARLES COKER WILSON CUSS OF 1886. WRITING IN i PAPER, “FIFTY YEARS' PROGRESS," FOR THE FORUM CLU8 IN 1926. PHOTO COURTESY OE USC ARCHIVES Outline Information looks like this.Outline information looks like in ^:he •ks ted nd nd eg “Upon my return to the President’s house, I was warmly reetofWTy Mrs. President (Mary Leary Woodward), and veffltshered in to tea, where I was placed at a polished klittle napkins of every shape and size and tex Ired about over it and mingled with their little dishes, some of which I didn’t know what to do with. One was intended for ice tea and when I didn’t set my glass in it, I saw there was something wrong in the atmosphere and soon rectified the mistake. Both the, 'e were very pleasant and we chatted till n on var ious college topics. However, I was ortable and would have left sooner, if I couI eniently | done so.” CHARLES MOORE CLASS OF 1887. AND LATER FACULTY MEMBER, DEAN, AND ACTING PRESIDENT ON DINING WITH COLLEGE PRESIDENT FRANK WOODWARD AND HIS WIFE 3ardly adjourned, before I saw unequivocal indi approaching commotion. At twilight noise began Campus, and large groups to be formed before the auses. In a short time the mob increased to a mui 1 titude. Shouts and riotous yells were heard; and as darkness i closed, a bright flame arose from the midst of the crowd. Upon > hastening to the spot with some of the Professors, I witnessed a scene of confusion, uproar and turbulence, beyond what I had l ever seen... The whole college apparently was assembled — one boy brandishing a sword, but with no i^to^io^jmurderous in tent —- though its flashing in the ligl|||neSHn| fire looked fearful enough. The fire was consunm»iamRMered with a pile of books — the chemical Text Booksgtfhicl^Fmembers of the Junior class had devoted as srtSolemfrtacrifice to the flames.” WILLIAM C. PRESTON UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT. RECALLING THE NIGHT OF APRIL 10, 1850 netime in February last, an insurrection broke out he students in the college, a number of whom proceeded ; houses of one of the professors and one of the tu aed the windows; took down the College bell and broke it to pieces; and committed other outrages, with great dis respect to the faculty and some of th^^tee^Mwere present. The Bell having been broken it a new one should be provided, or the exercises conducted irregularly for want of a bell.” HENRY DESAUSSURE CHAIRMAN OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE, IN A REPORT APRIL 27.1814 sessions of legislature before the federal ‘recon was perpetrated during these years and, as the Senate met in the University library and the House in the chapel, the University grounds were the scene of the political as well as the educational life otthestate.lt was one ol our social recreations to make up partflHBb gallery of the chapel and listen to the debates.^®^B| CHARLES HUTSON W W STUOENT 1866-1867, WRITING IN 1912 ABOUT HIS TUMWTcaMBW^ PHOTO COURTESY OF USC ARCHIVES Students protest killing of student at Kent State In 1970. Horseshoe is snapshot of USC, state Former USC president John Palms has called the Horseshoe “the living room of USC.” If this is true, then the Horseshoe has seen its fair Share of antics and romance, mischief and memory-mak ing over its 200 year history. PATRICK As a sometime AUGUSTINE Horseshoe res Fourth-year ident and se P°^cal, , , nior at USC, science student my time on campus bears out this claim that the roughly U shaped path of brick is the cul tural heart of a center for higher education I have grown to love the more time I’ve spent here. While most tours of the univer sity don’t begin on the Horseshoe, they inevitably traverse it at some point along their arbitrarily me andering path across campus. I’ve noticed the closer it gets to spring, the longer these tours linger along the tree-lined paths of Carolina’s lawn. There is an old story that, while largely uncorroborated, Thomas Jefferson was in the Deep South and so admired the design of the Horseshoe that he incorpo rated a public grassy area into his vision for the University of Virginia. While the Wahoos take a fair amount of pride in “Mr. Jefferson's Grounds,” as their lawn is so pretentiously referred to, USC students toss around the name of the Horseshoe with casual abandon bred from a certain fa miliar comfort. This is the place in a nutshell — distinctively dignified while re maining approachably public. If the Horseshoe were a political can didate, we’d elect him to six terms in the Senate, as South Carolina is fond of doing with its elder states men. As the blooms of azaleas and dogwoods slowly give way to July’s heat, the Horseshoe takes on a more subtle change. Since ear ly May, the bustle of students has been drastically reduced as sum mer scurries most students to cli mates more in keeping with breathing; it would be great if they could place a dome over the Horseshoe to regulate the humidi ty through South Carolina’s infa mous summers. The District of Columbia might have been situat ed on a fetid, stinking swamp, but Columbia did no better on a bluff above the convergence of two rivers that aid the sinking feeling trickling down your back when August and vinyl car seats collide. All this does little to dissuade sun bathers, dog walkers and even the occa sional busi nessperson es caping from his office to enjoy our oasis in the middle of down town. Students re turn, and while some may glum ly wish the grass were sand they were traversing only a few weeks ago as they trudge back off to class for the first time in months, they all know they’re home with a walk past the President’s House, with its leaded glass panes that render the con tents of the house in fishbowl clar ity. These windows seem to hold in a captured breath of history, as though the house is pensively wait ing to exhale the memories of all it has seen when leaves turn to their familiar autumnal reds, yel lows and oranges. Winter quickens the pace of un dergraduates returning home from the library, or from late night trysts across campus, and the scene takes on the mystical tones lit by streetlamps on the outer edge of the paving stones that angle up hill from west to east. Some have been lucky enough to catch the Horseshoe under a blanket of new snow that, while rare in these parts, hints at the pristine inno cence the place enjoys in the qui et evening hours. Daylight comes, though, and peals of laughter re place birdsong, as collegians leave footprints to stand guard around paltry snowmen. The Horseshoe has been for me, and I am sure for many of my fel low students, a place of joy with the first blushes of romance in rose gardens, and of bitter defeat under rainy skies; such are the fortunes of the college years. I did not choose USC from the start, but af ter returning here I have realized the manicured lawns of Furman or any other similarly southern school lack what the Horseshoe has — a stateliness bred of histo ry. The Horseshoe should, to the “new South,” be a landmark of all that is good about our tumultuous past — an island of reason and re flection, changeless amid the pass ing years. FILE PHOTO FROM GARNET & BLACK .Students with Hoodie and the Blowflslrand President John Palms in ’95. The Grammy-winning band performed for MfTV’s “Unplugged” on the Horseshoe: '■ • — uestio ame 2 USC graduates answer 5 question: about their Horseshoe memories 1 was a _ in and I graduated in CARTL“6E president of the graduate Jfuni°r class’be' fore being elect ed president of the student body during my junior year and serving my senior year. kdid you live on the J Woodrow, on the md I could look ootball tenement, whicl oor. The most me: g that happened to me when I was in Woodrow - they would come over and get freshmen for a hazing season. They used rickrack paddles and palmetto fronds with the branches trimmed off so they were three sid ed. Q: What weri/fhe c9|itions like in the Horseshoe bujjfings at that time? A: They weren’IrdMtaem as they are today. We had rH»t fix tures, but you had to provjP your own lamps. The ApweM^ere on the top floor. Theywfeall dormi tories. I had three people in my room the first year, two beds dou ble stacked. I don’t think the stu dents had much choice as to where they roomed - the registrar as signed the rooms. Q: Inj4'hat ways was the Horseshoe important when you were a*T!ar< Bia? ^k^Bhei^seshoe was the gath ermgplacetoi|necU-ly everything. The wall wai Bore important for a hangout. pJS|le that were skip ping classes would sit on the wall and visit with the other students, PHOTO BY MORGAN FORD/THE GAMECOCK First-year student Casey Smith, right, practices on the Horseshoe.' PHOTO COURTESY OF USC ARCHIVES A student picks a tune on the Horseshoe in 1987 by the Maxcy monument. or maybe you wBPh try to study. The wall that extended from the old President’s House where the (McKissick) Museum is now to the Observatory on Greene Street, that was the main hangout. That was also the location where all the elections were held. A friend of mine talked me into running for president of the student body; he was a Columbia student. He de cided he would run, and John Lumpkin was the third candidate who ran. Sure enough, I ended.up getting enough votes to get into a second race with John Lumpkin, and got elected on the final elec tion. Most of the campaigning was done along the wall. Working at the mess hall my last three years, I got to know all the students that lived on the campus. I used to know everybody by their first name. There were about eighteen hundred students in 1937. 1 Q: What is yBTrrfflfct notable memory of the Horseshoe? _ A." The secwjMttst popular place was in fromonBljPX where they did the laundry S the stu dents, and tha^ras rigm opposite the Macxy M(^m»nt. I believe there were granite bleachers around the monument at that time, and people would gather around that. At one time I was im itating Stan Laurel with a hat and all the looks and things. That episode around the monument got my name in the yellow sheet that was published every month for the students all over the United States. That was my highest note as far as the Macxy Monument was con cerned. BETH WRIGHT 1950 USC graduate Q: When were you a student at Carolina? Al I entered in the fall of ’46 and gratouptnil in June of ’50. George (1 fer [husband, 1950 gradu ate and fc Ball player) entered in October oft and graduated in ’50. They wei Bn the quarter system then. Q: Did you live on the Horseshoe? Al No, all of those buildings were classrooms, except the President’s home which was (then) the ADPi ani^Phi sorori ty house. I lived in Steeds for one year, but I greyAip in oBmbia so my folks just gave mop year of dormitory life for twTfun of it. George lived in Tendment5an the Horseshoe, whig^BBHp1 and lonely experience until some of the guys said well come on over and live with us, and I think they were acros^Miiorseshoe. Q: Whagwere the conditions like in thonorseshoe buildings at A: ThePjiyided the big rooms (in the HoraBhoe buildings) into tw^cooms jnd after the war they punlwwfteds into each room and they all shared one bath. That was in Tenament 5, and then he moved over to Tenament 23. Tenament 5, as you stood on the McKissick li brary steps, was to your left, kind of half-way down the Horseshoe, (current day Pinckatf-Legare) Q: In wh^c vB’s was the Horseshoe i^portHt when you were at Carolina§| A‘ We just crowedit every time we went to claBand our pic ture was taken thertfty the mark er on Sumter street. Q: is your most ory that would be on the McKissick steps. That was a regular thing they did every May. PHOTO COURTESY OF USiC ARCHIVES Students celebrate May Day on the Horseshoe In 1958.