Griggs Business and Practical College began as a private home for Joseph Minter and Elizabeth Gregory in 1858. Mrs. Gregory stayed in the brick Italianate home until her death in 1920.
In 1949, Reverend S. A. Owens and C. J. Gaston purchased the home to serve as the permanent home of the Griggs Business and Practical College. The school began five years earlier in Emma Griggs’s home. It was one of three Black colleges in Memphis. Griggs taught the “practical arts” of sewing, cooking, and other domestic activities. Griggs passed away before the school opened in its Vance Avenue location.
Fortunately, the school thrived until the 1970s and the decision was made to close it.
The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.
