After a 1926 stove fire destroyed the school, Rabun Gap merged in 1927 with the Nacoochee Institute, founded in 1903 and formerly located in Sautee, Georgia. Headed by the Reverend John Knox Coit, the Nacoochee Institute was a boarding school for boys and girls as well as a public school for the students of White County. Six weeks after Rabun Gap's fire, the schoolhouse of the Nacoochee Institute burned as well. In September 1928 the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School opened at Rabun Gap with a new school building. Ritchie served as president and Coit as co-president.