Included with GeorgiaRoam+Fort Valley State University Campus Tour
Georgia's 1890 land-grant HBCU, raised by the hands of its own students
Self-guided walking tour in Fort Valley · 0.9 mi · walking · ~55m · 5 stops
The Tour
Fort Valley State University began in 1895 when an interracial group of 18 founders — 15 Black men, many of them formerly enslaved, and 3 white men — chartered the Fort Valley High and Industrial School to advance the education of African Americans in Georgia. In 1939 it merged with the State Teachers and Agricultural College of Forsyth to become Fort Valley State College under its first president, Horace Mann Bond, and in the 1940s it was designated Georgia's 1890 land-grant institution. This short walk through the historic Georgian Revival core — much of it built by students' own hands — and out toward the agricultural heart of campus tells that story.
Fort Valley State University Campus Tour is a self-guided walking tour of Fort Valley, built around its campus side.
The walk covers 5 stops over about 0.9 miles and roughly 55 minutes, entirely at your own pace. Each stop's story unlocks on your phone the moment you arrive — GPS-triggered, hands-free, no guide and no tour group to keep up with.
What you'll see
Fort Valley State's campus tells a founding story few colleges can match. Former slaves and their neighbors started the school in 1895, and its students raised many of the early buildings with their own hands. This walk starts at Founders Hall, the columned 1920s academic building named for the 18 founders. Its auditorium still hosts plays and convocations. Nearby, the brick trades building from 1925 recalls the years when carpentry and masonry sat at the center of the curriculum.
The oldest building on campus is Anderson House, once the home of founder Francis W. Gano. It now displays a collection of period furniture, quilts, silver and Civil War-era objects. From there the walk heads past the Pettigrew Center, a busy conference and fine-arts hall with a pipe organ, toward the agricultural side of campus. That's where the university's land-grant mission comes alive in research buildings, pastures and test plots. You'll also hear the story of the Ham and Egg Show, a farm fair that grew into a famous folk and blues festival.
The route covers just under a mile and takes about an hour on foot. Mornings are cooler in summer, and fall weekends bring game-day energy and the Blue Machine Marching Band. The Georgia Roam app plays each stop's story as you arrive.
Georgia
