Piedmont College

One of the most dynamic small-colleges in the Southeast, Piedmont’s 200-acre residential campus is located in Demorest, Ga., in the foothills of the north Georgia mountains. Our Athens campus is designed for commuting students and is located in the heart of Georgia’s Classic City. Founded in 1897, Piedmont is a comprehensive liberal arts institution and also offers a variety of career-oriented majors in the arts and sciences, business, education, and nursing. Total enrollment at both campuses is approximately 2,200 students. In 1897, opening a college in the wilderness of northeast Georgia must have seemed to some like a prescription for failure. The area was accessible by few roads, ￾mostly crude dirt strips paved with sapling trees. Under the direction of a Methodist minister, the Rev. Charles C. Spence, a youthful band of entrepreneurs obtained a charter from the State of Georgia, organized a board of trustees, bought books, hired a faculty, and secured space for classes and dormitories. On the first Wednesday of September 1897, amid much fanfare and ceremony, the opening exercises for the J.S. Green Collegiate Institute were held in downtown Demorest, and the entire student body, from first grade to college juniors, marched up the hill from...