Cokesbury College Tour & Ice Cream Social
Cokesbury College is on the National Register of Historic Places, is a Methodist #2 Historic Site, and won the Greenwood County Architectural and Historic Preservation Award.
Join us for Ice Cream & Tours!
Sunday, June 9
2:00 – 4:00 PM
Free for all! Bring the whole family.
210 College Road
Hodges, SC
Discover more about Cokesbury College here.
Enjoy a pleasant Sunday afternoon of ice cream and tours of Historic Cokesbury and see our new Gazebo!
Visitors will see all the recent restoration efforts, both inside and outside of the College building. Commissioners, acting as tour guides, will discuss the Commission’s plans for enhancing access to and community use of the College and grounds. Cokesbury College was built in 1854 and opened as one of the earliest Masonic Female Collegiate Institutes in the rural southeast. The College building and grounds are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and are maintained and managed by the Cokesbury College Historical and Recreational Commission.
A Short History of Cokesbury College
An historical gem in the Greenwood community region and the upstate region, Cokesbury College (1854) and the surrounding Cokesbury community-- represent an extraordinary glimpse at an early planned utopian community committed to innovative education for young men (Cokesbury Manual Conference School), young women (Cokesbury Female College) and for emancipated slaves (Allen University). Although Cokesbury feels a bit “off the beaten path” today, it was once one of the most prominent communities in the upper part of South Carolina. At its peak, it was a thriving hub of education for the entire state, and many influential South Carolinians called it home. The story of Cokesbury began when visionaries in the Tabernacle Community decided to build a new school. After much deliberation, a public meeting was held on July 4, 1824 to promote the idea of developing a new village around the new school’s location. The name of the new village: Mount Ariel.