History of Park Hall and its Namesake

By Jessica DeMarco-Jacobson

After a year and a half of being a student in the English Department, I am embarrassed to admit that I sometimes still get lost in Park Hall. With its well-worn staircases and confusing floorplan, I know I am not the only one. Park Hall certainly isn’t the flashiest or most sensical building, but there is a reason to its madness. Its history explains some of its mystery.

Part of why Park Hall is so weird is partly due to its age. As a part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Public Works Administration constructed Park Hall in 1939. Park Hall—the most up-to-date building at the time—was part of a UGA expansion plan that also included the construction of LeConte Hall and Baldwin Hall. Before it was home to the English Department, Park Hall contained the Department of Physics.

During UGA’s growth spurt in the 1960s, the university planned to add an annex to Park Hall to provide additional space and new technology for its students and teachers. The annex was completed in 1970 and also provided women’s restrooms—that’s why they’re all on one side of the building! Now, Park Hall houses both the English and Classics Departments. All undergraduates must take First-Year Writing courses, so most students have entered Park Hall at some point.

In 1946, the building was named after the late Robert Emory Park, who served as the English Department Head from 1900-1942 (yes, you read that correctly!). But information about Robert Park is scant. Even his great-grandson, Richard Stephen (Steve) Monday, has found difficulty in learning about his ancestor. Thankfully, a 1957 article from The Georgia Review provides some insight into the Park Hall namesake:

Robert Emory Park was born to Emma Bailey and James Fletcher Park in Tuskegee on 11 December, 1868. He enrolled in West Point Military Academia in 1888, but resigned after eighteen months due to an injury. When he returned home, he attended the University of Alabama, where he received A.B. and A.M. degrees. Before he arrived at UGA in 1900, Park taught at Gainsville high schools and married Mary Belle Whelchel, who belonged to a prominent North Georgia family.

In addition to his forty-year tenure as head of the English Department, Park studied at Oxford University for a year, travelled in Europe, and received an honorary doctorate from UA. He was also a member of the Methodist Church, the Democratic Party, and several fraternities. 

The article speaks highly of Robert E. Park--describing his character as accomplished and disciplined, but gentle-natured. He had a warm personality and was dedicated to his students’ education and well-being. 

As Edwin M. Everett writes, “Professor Park's great strength was not in scholarship sort but in his humanity. Like most of his colleagues, he gave little or no time to the composition of scholarly learned journals; he gave his time instead to his reading and to his students”

Sources:

Rebecca Hopper and Akela Reason. "Park Hall ." Clio: Your Guide to History. May 2, 2019. Accessed December 11, 2024. https://theclio.com/entry/77109

Everett, Edwin M. “Robert E. Park: Professor Old Style.” The Georgia Review, vol. 11, no. 4, 1957, pp. 369–79. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41395464. Accessed 11 Dec. 2024.