Both Reinhardt and Sharp had grown up in the Waleska area, and after the American Civil War had ended and the hardships of Reconstruction begun, both men wanted to provide a school for the local citizens of impoverished Cherokee County.

Reinhardt, who had been a successful lawyer after the Civil War with the firm of Reinhardt & Hook in Atlanta and owned interest in a successful Atlanta street car line, went to the North Georgia conference of the Methodist Church and appealed for them to provide a strong minister and teacher to start the school.

James T. Linn as the school's first teacher, Reinhardt Academy opened for classes in an old cabinet and wood shop located at the southern edge of Waleska.

Seizing this ready supply of wood, school officials and local citizens had it cut up into lumber and began to construct Reinhardt's first permanent building.

The grammar school taught reading, writing and arithmetic, supplemented by courses in elocution, geography, history and penmanship.

The academy (high school) taught students algebra, astronomy, botany, chemistry, ethics, geology, geometry, grammar, languages (French, Greek and Latin), literature, logic, music, physics, psychology, and, by 1916, art and expression.

Service in this department was compulsory for able-bodied boys, where they often participated in drills, exercises, encampments, dress parades, and mock skirmishes.

The Hill Freeman Library and Spruill Learning Center holds some 131,000 books, periodicals and audiovisual materials.

When Reinhardt Academy opened in January 1884, students convened in an old cabinet and wood shop located at the southern edge of Waleska.

In 1949, Reinhardt College hosted a Conservation Field Day, billed as a "one-day Master Soil Conservation 'Face-lifting Demonstration'",[3] where the college added fifty acres of land to its property, built four buildings for various uses, constructed a one-acre fish pond and ten-acre athletic field, and put up five miles of fences.

[3][7][6] Although the Evelyn Gordy Hospitality House wasn't moved to the Reinhardt campus until the early 1990s, it was built in 1929 and was originally located at 3558 Piedmont Avenue in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta.

Rankin's first husband was Frank Gordy, who also was a Reinhardt alumnus and founder of the world's largest drive-in restaurant, The Varsity.

Moved to Reinhardt in December 1990 and January 1991 in four pieces, and reassembled, the 3,500 square foot, three-bedroom home underwent an 11-month restoration.

In addition to the home's Georgian Revival, Neo-Colonial-inspired architecture, it is sheltered by an Italian-tiled roof and contains rare French, hand blocked-wallpaper in the "Eldorado" pattern made by the Zuber Cie company.

Recognized student groups include those devoted to service, leadership, the arts and music, the outdoors, spiritual growth, and specific academic disciplines.

Reinhardt has chapters of Zeta Tau Alpha and Delta Phi Epsilon women's sororites, and Kappa Sigma fraternity, but no Greek housing on campus.

Additionally, students had to attend daily morning and evening prayers in the school's chapel and provide themselves with a personal Bible.

Strict study hours were prescribed from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. for students, and they were forbidden to be out of their residences or boarding houses after dark, except to attend literary societies or religious exercises.

By 1893, the school was using its recently established Military Department, which elected an "officer of the day," to enforce curfews and study hour regulations.

Additionally, alcohol (except "health tonics" prescribed by a student's family), bad public behavior, cheating, dishonesty, falsehood, fighting, gambling, malicious mischief, quarreling, playing cards, profanity, social dancing, tattling, and the use of tobacco, except for boys with permission from their parents, were prohibited.

This changed, however, as a result of Coca-Cola employee Dr. Samuel Candler Dobbs donating money to the school for construction of an educational building in 1926 (see Early campus history).

[3][7][6] From its founding, Reinhardt students were busy in a wide variety of activities, including athletics, literary societies, military training, music, oratory, patriotic observances and religious programs.

Much like social fraternities, these societies had initiation ceremonies for new inductees, such as bizarre dress and antics, downing raw eggs, or having students roll a piece of chalk across the floor with their noses while blindfolded.

Service in this department was compulsory for able-bodied boys, where they often participated in drills, exercises, encampments, dress parades and mock skirmishes.

By 1894, Reinhardt had a Music Department that participated in the school's religious programs, assemblies, special events and commencement exercises.

This program would allow students to work part-time during the school year or full-time during the summer months to help offset tuition expenses.

By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, Reinhart's male boarding student numbers had escalated, promoting the institution to build two new dormitories for boys in 1911.

In 1935, Cherokee Hall, a brick dormitory separate from the first 1911 wooden dorm, was built on the site currently occupied by the Hagan Chapel.

Johnston was a former board of trustees member of the school, from a Cherokee County pioneer family, and a prominent lay leader in the North Georgia conference of the Methodist Church.

[12][13][14] They were also a member of the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA), primarily competing as an independent in the South Region of the Division I level from 1999–2000 to 2000–01.