Mary Ann Brame, Katie Brame, Lynn Hulan and J.P. Rippy Sr. remove items from the Turner College cornerstone. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney)

Margaret Stewart, who led the service at Woodfork Chapel AME Church on Lipscomb Street, called the cornerstone opening "a once-in-a-lifetime occasion."

Turner Normal and Industrial Institute was established in 1882 and played a key role in educating the area's African-American students for decades before closing in 1935. It was founded by the African Methodist Episcopal denomination and had a close relationship with Woodfork Chapel AME church through those years; many presidents of the college also served as ministers at Woodfork Chapel, according to Mary Ann Brame, one of Sunday's speakers.

Here are some of the items pulled from the cornerstone during Sunday's ceremony. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Click to enlarge]

The building from which the cornerstone came was actually constructed as a girls' dormitory in 1912 but its cornerstone was defective and had to be replaced two years later, the same year when the school's name was changed to Turner College.

In recent years, the building had been owned by Musgrave Pencil Company and had been used for storage. The east wall of the 93-year-old building collapsed last July, and it had to be torn down as a result. The Hulan family, which owns Musgrave, preserved the cornerstone and presented it to Woodfork Chapel.

"We knew it needed to come home," said Henry Hulan during Sunday's ceremony.

The writing on the cornerstone reads "Girls Dormitory 1914 Rt. Rev. J.H. Jones." Jones was president of the college at the time. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Click to enlarge]

J.P. Rippy, Porter Castleman, Katie Brame, Mary Ann Brame and Lynn Hulan participated in the actual cornerstone opening. The first item removed from the cornerstone was an 1848 issue of the newspaper The Independent. Other items included:

* A list of contributors to the building project, many of whom contributed just $1 or 50 cents. The Rev. Troy Merritt Jr., a presiding elder in the AME denomination, noted that that could have been a day's wages or two day's wages for many African-Americans at the time. County Mayor Eugene Ray noted later that the staff of the college was "able to take so little and do so much."

* A July 1914 issue of The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP.

* A blank check from the school's account at Farmer's Bank of Shelbyville.

* A 1910 newspaper clipping about the college.

* A June 1906 commencement program.

* A Bible.

* A 1914 issue of the Women's Missionary Reporter.

* Two different course catalogs for the school.

"Education is so important to all of us," said Ray.

Shelbyville Mayor Wallace Cartwright noted that he and his father had been contractors on Woodfork AME's current building.

Merritt noted that the educators who ran Turner College, and the students who passed through it, were pioneers.

"They built a bridge for us to cross," Merritt said. "What will be said about us 100 years from now?"