Chartered in 1838 as Fort Gaines Female Institute, this college was completed in 1859 after the Legislature authorized a lottery in 1857 to finish it. Sereno Taylor was the first principal, followed by John W. Grant. During the Civil War, the large college building served as a tax-in-kind depot for storage of one-tenth of all food and wool raised to support the Confederate Army. At the close of the war, Confederate soldiers distributed the contents of this and two other local warehouses to families in the area before Federal troops arrived. After a period of use as barracks for Federal soldiers, it again became an important educational center, but the school later closed following an epidemic of typhoid fever.