Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of John Preston McConnell of Scott, Virginia
John Preston McConnell was born in Scott County, Virginia, on February 22, 1866, at the edge of a mountain world still recovering from the Civil War. The farms, churches, schools, and family networks of Southwest Virginia shaped him long before he became the first president of what is now Radford University.
Today his name is most often seen on Radford’s McConnell Library, but the man behind that name belonged to a larger Appalachian story. He came out of rural Scott County, pursued higher education across the mountains, became a historian, taught at several institutions, and then spent more than two decades building a school meant to prepare women for teaching and public life in Virginia.
McConnell’s life shows how one mountain-born educator helped connect the small schools of Southwest Virginia to the expanding world of public higher education.
A Scott County Beginning
McConnell was born near Mack in Scott County, a far southwestern Virginia county tied by road, kinship, and trade to East Tennessee and the larger Appalachian uplands. His parents were Hiram Kilgore McConnell and Ginsey Elizabeth Brickey McConnell. Regional biographical accounts describe his family as rooted in the old farming communities of Scott County, where public duty, church life, and education often overlapped.
His early schooling began in the county’s public schools. From there, he attended Riverview Seminary before continuing his education at Milligan College in Tennessee. That path mattered. For a young man from rural Scott County in the late nineteenth century, higher education required determination, family support, and a willingness to move between mountain communities in search of opportunity.
At Milligan, McConnell earned his bachelor’s degree and later his master’s degree. He also met Clara Louise Lucas, whom he married in 1891. His years there placed him within the Christian Church, also known as the Disciples of Christ, and helped shape the religious and educational commitments that followed him through life.
Teacher, Scholar, and Historian
Before McConnell became a college president, he was a teacher and scholar. He taught at Milligan College and later studied at the University of Virginia, where he pursued graduate work in history, economics, and English literature. He became associated with Emory and Henry College, where he served as professor of history and economics and eventually as dean.
His major historical work, Negroes and Their Treatment in Virginia from 1865 to 1867, was published in Pulaski, Virginia, in 1910. The title reflects the racial language of its time, but the subject shows McConnell’s interest in Virginia during Reconstruction and the difficult transition from slavery to freedom after the Civil War. HathiTrust records the book as a 126-page work by John Preston McConnell, printed by B. D. Smith & Brothers in Pulaski.
That work placed McConnell among early twentieth-century Virginia historians who tried to interpret the aftermath of emancipation and the collapse of the old order. Like many scholars of his era, he wrote within the assumptions and limitations of his time. Still, the book is important because it shows that McConnell was not only an administrator. He was also a trained historian who believed the past could help explain the state he served.
A New School in East Radford
In 1910, the Virginia General Assembly founded the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Radford. The school grew out of a statewide effort to improve public education and prepare more teachers, especially for rural communities. The new institution was placed on thirty-three acres in East Radford known as Heth Grove.
McConnell was appointed president in October 1911. At the time, the campus was still more promise than reality. The first major building, later known as Founders Hall, was under construction. It would hold administrative offices, classrooms, a gymnasium, an auditorium, and a library. The building was dedicated in August 1913, just before the school opened its first session that September.
The students who arrived in 1913 entered a young institution with a serious mission. Some came from two-year or three-year high schools and could complete additional schooling before earning a Normal School diploma. Others entered programs tied to teaching, household arts, rural arts, and manual arts. The school carried the expectations of its era, including strict rules for women students, but McConnell pushed for the institution to give those women real academic preparation.
His presidency came during a time when women’s higher education was still limited in many places. Radford University’s own history remembers McConnell as a strong supporter of quality education for women and as someone who worked to give female students access to information, courses, and materials.
Education for the Mountain South
McConnell’s work at Radford should be understood in the context of the mountain South. Southwest Virginia needed teachers. Rural schools needed trained instructors who could serve isolated communities, improve literacy, and bring modern educational methods into places often overlooked by Richmond and other centers of power.
Normal schools were built for that purpose. They were not simply colleges in the modern sense. They were teacher-training institutions meant to raise the quality of public education. In Appalachia, that mission carried special weight. A trained teacher could change the life of a one-room school, and a better school could change the future of a hollow, a creek valley, or a small courthouse town.
During McConnell’s presidency, Radford grew from a new women’s normal school into a stronger teachers college. The school’s first Bachelor of Science degrees were awarded in 1921. In 1924, the institution became the State Teachers College at Radford. McConnell insisted that teacher education should not be narrow or second-rate. Radford’s history records his belief that good teaching required good courses, whether the teacher was preparing for a rural school or a city school.
That sentence may be the best summary of his educational philosophy. He did not see rural education as inferior education. For him, mountain schools and rural students deserved teachers with serious preparation.
Public Service and Reform
McConnell’s influence extended beyond Radford’s campus. Regional accounts describe him as active in educational associations, civic work, church life, public welfare, and reform movements. He served in organizations connected to education and social service and became involved in statewide causes.
One of the most important and controversial parts of his public life was his support for prohibition. Radford University Archives identifies him as a strong supporter of the prohibition of alcohol and preserves material related to the Virginia Anti-Saloon League. By the early 1920s, McConnell was president of the Virginia Anti-Saloon League. To modern readers, prohibition is often remembered through crime, bootlegging, and failed national policy, but many reformers of McConnell’s generation understood it as part of a wider moral and social campaign.
His reform work reflected the religious and civic culture that shaped many Appalachian and southern educators in the early twentieth century. McConnell believed education, church life, moral reform, and public service were connected. His world was not divided neatly into private faith and public work. For him, building schools and improving society belonged to the same mission.
The Private Man in the Archives
McConnell can seem distant when viewed only through titles and offices. President. Dean. Professor. Historian. Reform leader. Yet the surviving archival material gives a more personal view.
Radford University holds John Preston McConnell’s official papers and personal papers. The McConnell Family Correspondence Collection includes letters between McConnell and family members. These records preserve the everyday concerns of a man who lived through the Progressive Era, World War I, the growth of public education, and the Great Depression.
One small piece, “My Favorite Avocation,” written for the student newspaper the Grapurchat, shows McConnell reflecting on nature as a favorite pastime. It is a quiet source, but it helps humanize him. Behind the public speeches, institutional reports, and reform campaigns was a man who found meaning in the natural world around him.
Those personal writings are important because they move McConnell out of the marble hallway and back into the mountains, fields, and family life that formed him.
Resignation, Death, and Memory
McConnell served as Radford’s president until 1937. By then, the institution had changed dramatically from the school first imagined in 1910. It had survived its early years, expanded its curriculum, developed student traditions, and grown into a recognized part of Virginia’s public education system.
On November 15, 1937, McConnell resigned because of poor health. Dr. David W. Peters became president in 1938. McConnell died on October 13, 1941, just before the United States entered World War II.
His death marked the end of Radford’s founding generation. The school would continue changing in the decades that followed. It would become associated with Virginia Polytechnic Institute, later regain its separate identity, become coeducational, and eventually achieve university status. Yet McConnell remained central to its origin story.
Scott County also kept his memory. Historical marker references in the county identify him as a noted educator born in the area and remember his presidency at Radford. His name connects the mountain roads of Scott County to a major public university in the New River Valley.
Why McConnell Still Matters
John Preston McConnell matters because his life joined several important Appalachian themes. He came from a rural mountain county, pursued education beyond the limits of his birthplace, returned his talents to the service of Virginia, and helped build an institution aimed at training teachers for communities like the one that raised him.
He was not a simple figure. Like many Progressive Era reformers, he carried beliefs that deserve both recognition and scrutiny. His work in prohibition, his historical writing, and his religiously shaped public life all belong to the world of his time. But his commitment to education, especially women’s education and rural teacher training, left a lasting mark.
For Radford University, he was the founding president. For Scott County, he was one of its sons who carried mountain ambition into statewide service. For Appalachian history, he represents a generation of educators who believed that the future of the mountains depended not only on roads, railroads, and industry, but also on classrooms.
The strongest monument to McConnell is not only the library that bears his name. It is the long line of teachers, students, and public servants shaped by the institution he helped build.
Sources & Further Reading
Radford University Archives and Special Collections. “Official Papers of John Preston McConnell, President, State Teachers College, East Radford, Virginia, RU 2.1.1.” Radford University. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://mozart.radford.edu/archives/findingaids/mcconnell-official.html.
Radford University Archives and Special Collections. “John Preston McConnell: Personal Papers, RU 2.1.2.” Radford University. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://mozart.radford.edu/archives/findingaids/mcconnell-personal.html.
Radford University Archives and Special Collections. “Virginia Anti-Saloon League Collection, SC 203.” Radford University. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://mozart.radford.edu/archives/findingaids/anti-saloon.html.
Radford University Archives and Special Collections. “John Preston McConnell and the Anti-Saloon League of Virginia.” Radford University Archives Blog, February 24, 2012. https://mozart.radford.edu/archives/index.php/2012/02/24/john-preston-mcconnell-and-the-anti-saloon-league-of-virginia/.
Radford University Archives and Special Collections. “Personal Correspondence of John Preston McConnell.” Radford University Archives Blog, October 5, 2017. https://mozart.radford.edu/archives/index.php/2017/10/05/personal-correspondence-of-john-preston-mcconnell/.
Radford University Digital Collections. “McConnellPersonal_12_10_001.” McConnell Family Correspondence Collection. Radford University. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://monk.radford.edu/records/item/19019-mcconnellpersonal-12-10-001.
Radford University Digital Collections. “McConnellPersonal_12_13_013.” McConnell Family Correspondence Collection. Radford University. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://monk.radford.edu/records/item/19123-mcconnellpersonal-12-13-013.
McConnell, John Preston. “My Favorite Avocation.” Radford University Digital Collections. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://monk.radford.edu/records/item/17774-my-favorite-avocation-by-john-preston-mcconnell-written-for-the-grapurchat-the-student-newspaper.
McConnell, John Preston. Negroes and Their Treatment in Virginia from 1865 to 1867. Pulaski, VA: B. D. Smith & Brothers, 1910. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000340618.
University of Virginia Library. “Negroes and Their Treatment in Virginia from 1865 to 1867.” LibraETD. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/cj82k755j.
Radford University. “History of Radford University.” Accessed June 23, 2026. https://www.radford.edu/about/history.html.
Radford University. “History of the Presidency.” Accessed June 23, 2026. https://www.radford.edu/president/president-history.html.
Radford University. “The John Preston McConnell Memorial Scholarship Endowment.” Accessed June 23, 2026. https://radford.academicworks.com/opportunities/13182.
Library of Congress. The Inauguration of John Stewart Bryan as Nineteenth President of the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Williamsburg, VA, October 20, 1934. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/rbc/rbpe/rbpe18/rbpe188/1880070a/1880070a.pdf.
Virginia Chronicle. “Page 1, Daily Review, September 14, 1937.” Library of Virginia. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=DRV19370914.1.1.
Historical Marker Database. “McConnell’s Birthplace.” Accessed June 23, 2026. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=35967.
Historical Marker Database. “Historical Markers and War Memorials in Scott County, Virginia.” Accessed June 23, 2026. https://www.hmdb.org/results.asp?County=Scott+County&Search=County&State=Virginia.
Virginia Tech Digital Library and Archives. “John Preston McConnell, President of Radford State Teachers College.” Norfolk Southern Collection of Materials Relating to the Norfolk and Western Railway Company. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/items/show/36986.
New River Notes. “John Preston McConnell.” Accessed June 23, 2026. https://www.newrivernotes.com/john-preston-mcconnell/.
RootsWeb. “Dr. John Preston McConnell.” Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~vahsswv/historicalsketches/mc%20johnpreston.html.
Find a Grave. “Dr John Preston McConnell.” Memorial ID 79477321. Accessed June 23, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79477321/john_preston-mcconnell.
Addington, Robert M. History of Scott County, Virginia. Kingsport, TN: Kingsport Press, 1932. https://www.seekingmyroots.com/members/files/H011614.pdf.
Author Note: John Preston McConnell’s story is more than a university biography. It is a reminder that Appalachian counties like Scott County produced educators, reformers, and public leaders whose influence reached far beyond the mountains.