Col. Price and His Church: Connecting Faith, Education, and the Lost Cause Ideal

This essay determines how Col. William Pierce Price (1835-1908) of the North Georgia Agricultural College (NGAC, current University of North Georgia) used both local architecture and the construction of the Baptist Church located on Choice Street, Dahlonega, to promote his ideas of religion, military values, and Lost Cause ideology within the local community. The now-historic church building was planned, sponsored, and built between 1897 and 1898 under the auspices of Col. Price. I present archival research to argue that the Historic Church has an intentional connection to NGAC. To further my research claims, I use primary sources written by Col. Price himself while he served as the Baptist Congregation clerk (1897-98), local newspaper articles, minutes from the congregation, and photographs. I connect these sources to my analysis of the Historic Church and its architectural style, materials, location, and funding. I then integrate these documents with existing scholarship about the city of Dahlonega and NGAC written by local historians Andrew Cain (1932) and Anne Dismukes Amerson (2006), and with scholarship on the Lost Cause ideology and the Morrill Act of 1862. As these sources had not been analyzed together before, my analysis allows for an amplified narrative about the history of Dahlonega and NGAC through the structures that made it. Prior to my research, the Historic Church and NGAC had separate histories. I have brought them together under Col. Price, whose beliefs and goals intersected with their creation.