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“S” is for Sirrine, Joseph Emory

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  “S” is for Sirrine, Joseph Emory [1872-1947]. Architect, engineer. After graduating from Furman Sirrine was hired by the New England textile engineering firm Lockwood Green & Company to be the resident engineer for several projects in Greenville. In 1899 the company appointed him as its southern representative, responsible for all the company’s textile construction. Four years later he opened his own business, J.E. Sirrine, Architects and Engineers. The company built mills throughout the southeast as well as schools, churches, tobacco factories, bridges, colleges, and military camps. Among these were buildings at Furman, Clemson, and NC State; the Poinsett Hotel in Greenville; factories for R.J. Reynolds in Winston-Salem, Camp Sevier in Spartanburg, and Fort Bragg in North Carolina. At his death, Joseph Emory Sirrine left his estate to establish Sirrine Scholarships for Greenville high school graduates.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.