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Remembering Beardsley Junior High School
Published January 30, 2023; 3:49 p.m.


Established 1937

beardsley junior high
Beardsley Junior High School

The establishment of Beardsley Junior High School was a 2 year process spearheaded by Black civic leaders who appeared before the city Board of Education on January 17, 1935 requesting for a “new Negro junior high school.” After a deliberation between Superintendent Harry Clark and Chairman Christenberry, they proposed that a new school be built in Mechanicsville to help relieve congestion which had posed a challenge for the city’s already existing Black schools. Once a proper site was found to build the school, the board formally accepted the new Mechanicsville school on January 11, 1937.

beardsley junior high students
Economics students Mildred Branner, left, and Ophelia Bradford at the newly opened Mechanicsville Junior High School (later Beardsley Junior High School), September 1937 (Knoxville News-Sentinel)

beardsley junior high 1937
Newly built Mechanicsville Junior High School. The Knoxville Journal, September 9, 1937.


The site chosen for the new school had been part of the Knoxville College farm. The College donated a portion of the property to the Board in exchange for permission to allow KC students to do their practice teaching in the school. It was a lengthy process securing a site yet by the fall semester of September 1937, the Mechanicsville Junior High School officially opened its doors to students and faculty.

Supt. Clark urged the board to establish Beardsley as a 6 year high school to accommodate the number of Black children who lived in the Mechanicsville area. It appeared that his request was overturned as Beardsley would teach grades seven through ten. It was initially built to house 250 students but eventually had an enrollment of 750. Over the years, students participated in various extracurricular activies including band and chorus ensembles, art programs, charity drives, student council, poetry clubs, and sports.

beardsley junior high
Beardsley 10th grade class, circa 1949; image by Beck Center


Around 1965, Beardsley was paired with Rule High School to bring about racial integration in two schools. Both Black and white students zoned to the area attended Beardsley during their junior years and for their senior years, both groups went to Rule. By 1980, the school was commonly referred to as Beardsley Middle School.


gertrude beardsley

From the beginning, it was intended that the school be named in honor of Mrs. Gertrude Beardsley, the first woman member of the board. However, the PWA did not approve of the school’s naming after a living person and the board dropped the matter, settling for Mechanicsville Junior High School instead. However, by 1939 the PWA’s ruling was altered and a ceremony was held in October of that year restoring the school’s official name as Beardsley Junior High School. (The Knoxville Journal (Knoxville, Tennessee), September 27, 1931)


From the beginning, it was intended that the school be named in honor of Mrs. Gertrude Beardsley, the first woman member of the board. However, the PWA did not approve of the school’s naming after a living person and the board dropped the matter, settling for Mechanicsville Junior High School instead. However, by 1939 the PWA’s ruling was altered and a ceremony was held in October of that year restoring the school’s official name as Beardsley Junior High School.



Principals of Beardsley Junior High School

Charles W. Cansler 1937-1939
Monroe D. Senter 1939-1971
Mr. Nelson R. Nance 1971-1977
Mrs. Ruth Benn 1977-1983
Mr. Edward O. Hill 1983-1985
Mrs. Emily Walker 1985-1991

charles w cansler beardsley junior high
Charles W. Cansler
ruth benn
Ruth Benn

beardsley junior high principal
Retired Beardsley Middle School principal Monroe Senter and historian Margaret Carson. Senter was the longest serving principal at Beardsley where he held the position for 32 years; image by Beck Center

beardsley junior high
10th grade class of 1948; image by Beck Center


By 1991, despite its enrollment of 488 students, the Beardsley school building was considered "very, very old and very expensive to repair" by the school board. That same year, the board agreed to close the school at the end of the 1990-1991 semester with intentions to send students to predominantly white schools in efforts to improve "the county-wide racial balance" and place them in communities with "better socio-economic status." After its closing, the school was left abandoned for a few years. In 1996, however, with funding from the City of Knoxville, the former grounds of Beardsley were converted to a community garden, the CAC Beardsley Community Farm which has worked to end local food insecurity in East Tennessee.



The First Faculty

beardsley junior high faculty
First row (left to right): J.E. Richards, Mrs. Page, Darby Ervin, C.W. Cansler (principal), Edythe Nowlin, Hardway, Marcellus Saunders, Gladys Kyle Means, E.R. Taylor. Back row (left to right): Monroe D. Senter, Carrol Franklin Cross, Henry Smith, Leola Barton, W.E. Camphor, Mary Gillespie Baker, T.E. Gross, Estelle Cary Merrifield. image by Beck Center

beardsley junior high basketball team
Beardsley Boys' Basketball Team, 1946/47. Left to right (upper): Coach Gross, Lundy, Nelson, Sharp, Waggner, Hatley, Washington, and Principal Senter. (Bottom): Bowman, Allen Kincaid, Walker, Lawrence, Hawkins, William Kincaid.image by Beck Center


School Song


"Ever mindful of our devotion
As we pledge thee loyalty
For dear old Beardsley
O'er land and ocean
We will ever faithful be
And hold our standards high.
Let's honor our dear old Beardsley
As we go along the way.
Let us remember dear old Beardsley
With its royal crimson and its gray."

 















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