Qualla: Campbell University

Campbell University: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photo was taken during the late 1800s, Public domain. On January 5, 1887, a 26-year-old Baptist minister named James Archibald Campbell unlocked a small church in Buies Creek, North Carolina, and welcomed 16 students to the first day of classes at Buies Creek Academy. By the end of that first term, enrollment had grown to 92. Thirteen years later, on the evening of December 20, 1900, a suspicious fire destroyed everything except a large wooden tabernacle. Roused at 3:30 in the morning, Campbell watched his school burn down and told whoever asked: "Well, there's no chance to go on." A neighbor named Zachary Taylor Kivett came over the next day, found him still in bed, and said: "Why are you in bed? You're a Campbell. Get a hump on you." Over the next 478 days Kivett oversaw nearly every aspect of the academy's reconstruction - drawing plans, making the brick, sawing lumber, mixing sand and lime by hand. By January 8, 1901 - nineteen days after the fire - the tabernacle was open to classes again.

Read more: Campbell University on Qualla

Image: Photo was taken during the late 1800s | Public domain

Campbell University: A Steam Engine in Britches

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Naytchrboy at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Kivett was a friend, not a wealthy donor. He brought money and labor in equal measure. The 1909 catalog called him "a steam engine in britches." Within the first days after the fire he had renovated the tabernacle for emergency classroom use, arranged for wagons to deliver lumber...

Read more: Campbell University on Qualla

Image: Naytchrboy at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Campbell University: The Donor Who Heard a Voice

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Naytchrboy at English Wikipedia, Public domain. On the evening of September 26, 1923, D. Rich - treasurer of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company - stayed overnight at the Campbell home in Buies Creek. According to the school's historian J. Winston Pearce, Campbell asked how Rich had slept. Rich replied that he had slept very lit...

Read more: Campbell University on Qualla

Image: Naytchrboy at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Campbell University: The Founder Sells His School

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Campbell University, CC BY-SA 4.0. At the Baptist State Convention in Wilmington in 1925, J.A. Campbell sold his interest in the academy - appraised at $56,000 - to the convention itself for $28,000. The school had grown to be worth more than $500,000 by then; Campbell was, in effect, donating half its value back ...

Read more: Campbell University on Qualla

Image: Campbell University | CC BY-SA 4.0

Campbell University: Sandhills and Sandhill

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Naytchrboy at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The main campus sits in the Sandhills of southeastern North Carolina, in the small unincorporated village of Buies Creek near the Cape Fear River. The location is by design rural. The 1887 catalog noted with approval: "Being in the country, we avoid many of the temptations incide...

Read more: Campbell University on Qualla

Image: Naytchrboy at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Campbell University: From One Building to Eight Schools

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexisrael, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today Campbell operates schools in arts and sciences, pharmacy and health sciences, divinity, education, business, engineering, law, osteopathic medicine, and nursing. The School of Engineering launched in fall 2015, ABET-accredited from the start. The Jerry M. Wallace School of ...

Read more: Campbell University on Qualla

Image: Alexisrael | CC BY-SA 3.0